Team Chosen For Pavilion At Japan Expo

Team Chosen For Pavilion At Japan Expo

Wellington, March 16, 2004

Some of the country’s leading creative talent will be involved in devising and building the New Zealand pavilion for the 2005 World Expo in Aichi, Japan.

The Prime Minister Helen Clark announced New Zealand’s participation in the expo last September.

Earlier this month Miss Clark announced the appointment of Phillip Gibson, New Zealand Ambassador to Japan, as Commissioner General for the expo.

The design team will be led by Wellington exhibition creators Story!Inc (who developed The Lord of the Rings touring exhibition for Te Papa).

Team members include leading architects Warren + Mahoney Architecture, Wellington digital media producers Oktobor, Christchurch interactive developers HIT Lab and theatrical lighting consultant Marc Simpson.

The project will be managed by Mike Pattison, who managed the installation and running of the successful New Zealand pavilion at the 1993 World Expo at Taejon, Korea.

The Aichi expo’s overall theme is “Nature’s Wisdom” – the search for a sustainable civilisation in the 21st century.

Mr Pattison says that theme fits well with key messages the New Zealand pavilion will project - of a beautiful land and a creative, innovative and tehnologically sophisticated people.

He says the main “icon” of the exterior of the pavilion will a white cloud – “representing both New Zealand/Aotearoa and the water cycle which sustains us.”

The cloud will penetrate through into the interior of the pavilion, where a wide-screen multiple projection film will use the device of a bird’s flight across the New Zealand landscape to reveal the natural environment and some of the things New Zealanders are doing which relate to the expo’s theme.

Some 15 million people are expected to visit the expo between March and September 2005. The New Zealand pavilion can expect as many as 25,000 visitors a day on peak days.

“Given the large numbers that will attend, we need a concept which works well and can be intuitively understood during a quite brief visit but can offer more information to visitors able to stay longer," Mr Pattison says.

The project is under the overall management of New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, with input from a number of organisations, including Conservation, Culture and Heritage, Economic Development, Education New Zealand, Environment, Foreign Affairs and Trade, Research, Science and Technology, Te Puni Kokiri and Tourism New Zealand.

ENDS

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