The Wellington Sculpture Trust is pleased to announce the Collin Post 4 Plinths 9 Project awardee is now installed on the Te Papa forecourt.
Internationally renowned designer, Sabine Marcelis, is the recipient of the ninth Collin Post 4 Plinths Project commission. Merging Blocks (2024) are four large coloured and mirrored glass volumes, in varying proportions and orientations. Th injecting a warmth into the grey bollards and their surrounds.
Sabine is known for her experimental approach to materiality and light, playing with perception and perspective, using subtle transparencies, mirrored finishes and gradients to explore the interplay of colour, shapes, and light.
Sabine says of her work: “Having spent much of my childhood in New Zealand, that formative period in which connection and understanding of place are solidified in ways that we often do not understand until much later, this project marks something special for me.
“Each volume has been designed to reflect a different aspect of the city: the faces of those passing, the tangle of clouds or the emptiness of the sky – they show us the mood of a city and the hijinks of the weather.
“The works are also activated by the shifting light of their location. Throughout the day, as the light changes so too does the footprint of each block. On bright days, it stretches and increases, casting a glow across pavements, faces and buildings. The Blocks alter our experience of this space through colour, shape, and light.”
Sabine was born in the Netherlands, her family immigrated to New Zealand when she was 10 years old, and she returned to Holland when she was 23, now running her practice from the harbour of Rotterdam. After graduating from the Design Academy of Eindhoven in 2011, she began working as an independent designer within the fields of product, installation, and spatial design.
The Collin Post 4 Plinths Project Sculpture Award
The Wellington Sculpture Trust, with the Collin Post 4 Plinths Project, continues to support both permanent and temporary public art, and for the past 18 years has showcased New Zealand sculptural practice with biennial sculpture installations. The aim of the project is to foster art, artists and audience interactions, and to provide an opportunity for established and emerging artists to work in the area of large-scale public sculpture.
The Trust acknowledges with warm appreciation its major sponsors, the Post Family Trust who gift the $50,000 award, Wellington City Council, their Waterfront team and the Public Art Fund, as well as the support of Creative New Zealand, The Netherlands Embassy and Seresin Wines.
