The terracotta warriors have arrived at Te Papa!
Monday 3 December, 2018
The terracotta warriors have arrived at Te Papa!

After travelling more than 10,000 kilometres from Xi’an, China, the 2,300-year-old terracotta warriors have arrived at Te Papa.
The imperial icons were welcomed on 22 November
with a small informal blessing as each crate of precious
cargo was brought into the national museum. A formal private
pōwhiri and blessing will take place ahead of the public
opening.
The unmissable exhibition Terracotta Warriors: Guardians of Immortality : opens on 15 December this year and runs through summer until 22 April 2019.
Until then, a team of Te Papa installers, mount makers,
conservators, exhibition designers, curators, and
technicians, alongside four colleagues from China, will be
installing the ancient treasures in their new temporary
home.
The exhibition features eight life-sized
warriors and two horses. Also on show are over 160 exquisite
treasures from imperial tombs in and around China’s
ancient capital, Xi’an.
Te Papa’s Head of Art,
Charlotte Davy, says: ‘We’re honoured to be the kaitiaki
for these incredible works of art and to enable New
Zealanders to come close to this ancient history.
‘I’m blown away by the epic stories behind these ancient
items. It’s awe-inspiring to think that they were created
before the reign of the Egyptian pharaoh Cleopatra, the
construction of the Colosseum in Rome, and the major
eruption of Taupō in New Zealand.’
Terracotta Warriors is the first international exhibition to be held in Te Papa’s new art gallery, Toi Art, which opened to critical acclaim earlier this year.
Te Papa has
commissioned a New Zealand artist to create an artwork in
response to the visit of the ancient terracotta warriors
from Xi’an.
Local artist Kerry Ann Lee has created
the immersive installation Return to Skyland.
‘It was important to us to have a contemporary response by
a Chinese New Zealander, and to support the production of
new artworks by New Zealand’s best artists,’ says Ms
Davy.
Kerry Ann Lee’s work is displayed within the
exhibition space of Terracotta Warriors: Guardians of
Immortality.
Kerry Ann Lee – Return to Skyland
Inspired by the idea of physical and spiritual journeying, Wellingtonian Kerry Ann Lee has created a ‘dreamscape transit lounge’. Visitors to Terracotta Warriors: Guardians of Immortality can enter her multimedia installation to rest and reflect on their experience before continuing their journey through the exhibition.
Custom-designed wallpaper lines the room,
created from images and illustrations from Chinese
publications belonging to the artist’s family.
The installation also features Distant resonance, 2018, a video work by Kerry Ann Lee that uses images of Chinese objects from Te Papa’s collection. These are combined with lines from the poem ‘Looking over Sian at night’, 1954, by the New Zealand writer Rewi Alley, who lived in China for 60 years, becoming one of the country’s best-known and best-loved foreigners.
Kerry Ann Lee’s Return to
Skyland offers a playful look at the idea of identity
while also reflecting on the experience of Chinese
settlement in New Zealand.
Terracotta
Warriors: Guardians of Immortality
For more than 2,000 years, an underground army secretly guarded the tomb of Qin Shihuang, China’s First Emperor. It was discovered by chance in 1974 by a farmer digging a well, and is one of the greatest archaeological finds of the 20th century– an eighth wonder of the world.
What’s in the exhibition?
Only 10 items from the famous Terracotta Army are allowed be loaned at one time.
Te Papa’s exhibition will have two horses and eight full-sized warriors: an armoured general, an unarmoured general, two armoured military officers, a kneeling archer, a standing archer, an unarmoured infantryman, and a civil official.
The life-sized,
lifelike soldiers each weigh 100–300 kilograms. They vary
in height, uniform, and hairstyle in accordance with rank.
Originally, the figures were painted with bright pigments,
but much of the colour has faded over time.
The
remarkable terracotta figures are presented alongside
extravagant treasures from imperial tombs in and around
China’s ancient capital, Xi’an.
Terracotta
Warriors includes more than 160 exquisite works of
ancient Chinese art crafted from gold, jade, and bronze,
which date from the Western Zhou through to the Han dynasty
(1046 BCE – 220 CE).
The curator
says:
Dr Rebecca Rice, curator of the exhibition, says: ‘At Te Papa, we’re offering visitors an immersive and intimate experience – a chance to see the terracotta warriors up close in breath-taking detail.
‘You can
really appreciate the individuality of each warrior and the
incredible creativity and sophistication it would have taken
to build this remarkable army.
‘The exhibition will
also provide visitors with a deeper understanding of the
First Emperor’s vision and his unification of China,
shaping the nation as we know it today,’ says Dr
Rice.
Partners:
Te Papa has developed the $2.6 million landmark exhibition with support of up to $500,000 from the Major Events Development Fund, administered by the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment. The exhibition has been indemnified by the New Zealand Government.
In addition to the Major Events
Development Fund investment from MBIE, Te Papa also
acknowledges the support of Shaanxi Provincial Cultural
Relics Bureau, Shaanxi History Museum (Shaanxi Cultural
Heritage Promotion Center), Emperor Qin Shihuang’s
Mausoleum Site Museum, Manatū Taonga, the Ministry for
Culture and Heritage, Wellington City Council, Wellington
Regional Economic Development Agency, and a number of
partners that are working with Te Papa towards supporting
this momentous cultural exchange between New Zealand and
China.
Events
With 2019 being the China–New Zealand Year of Tourism, this exhibition provides a foundation stone of New Zealand’s exciting tourism programme.
Terracotta Warriors will be supported by an extensive programme of free cultural events, including Chinese New Year celebrations in collaboration with Wellington City Council and Wellington’s Asian Events Trust.
Another highlight is The Lanterns of the
Terracotta Warriors, a spectacular display of 40 terracotta
warrior lanterns that will feature in Te Papa’s forecourt
5–24 February.
Ticket
information
Tickets to Terracotta Warriors: Guardians of Immortality are on sale (adult $19.50, child 3–15 years $9, concession $17). Book tickets now to secure your preferred date and time:tepapa.nz/terracottawarriors
Terracotta Warriors: Guardians of Immortality
:
15 December 2018 – 22 April 2019
Toi Art at Te Papa, Level 4
Exhibition catalogue from Te Papa Press
A highly illustrated companion book, featuring striking images of all the objects on display, which has been edited by curator Dr Rebecca Rice. She and local scholars Duncan Campbell and Nathan Woolley, both experts on this period of China’s history, have contributed fascinating essays that consider the Qin and Han dynasties and their legacy, and provide background to the creation of the objects and their ongoing discovery.
Terracotta Warriors: Guardians of Immortality, Edited
by Rebecca Rice, Published by Te Papa Press. RRP $35.00.
Available from the Te Papa store and all good bookshops from
14 December
Background information
By the numbers:
- 2,300 years: age of the terracotta warriors
- 10 items from the Terracotta Army: the maximum number that can be loaned at one time
- 8 full-sized terracotta warriors
- 2 full-sized terracotta horses
- 100–300kg: weight range of the warriors
- 180cm: average height of the warriors
- 2 half-sized replica bronze chariots, each drawn by four horses
- 160 exquisite ancient Chinese artefacts crafted from gold, jade, and bronze
- 3,060 years: age of the oldest item on display
- $2.6 million: cost of the exhibition
- $500,000: Major Events Development Fund investment from MBIE
- Indemnified by the New Zealand Government
- 100,000: estimated expected exhibition visitors
- $33 million: estimated economic benefit to Wellington
The buried army
The First Emperor’s Terracotta Army is located 1.5 kilometres east of the Emperor’s burial mound in Xi’an, China, in the province of Shaanxi.
It is estimated that there are
8,000 soldiers in total, with approximately 3,000 excavated
to date – this work continues daily.
The First
Emperor’s tomb itself has not been excavated and may never
be. Historical records tell of rivers of flowing mercury and
constellations of precious stones in the First Emperor’s
tomb.
Scholars continue to debate the function of Qin’s Terracotta Army. Some think that because the soldiers face east, they were intended to protect the First Emperor in the afterlife. Others question the soldiers’ readiness for battle, as they are not fully armoured.
Previous visits to New Zealand
Terracotta warriors first visited New Zealand 32 years ago. Over the spring and summer of 1986–87, they toured to Christchurch, Wellington, and Auckland.
In 2003, there was a seven-week exhibition in Auckland only.
Kerry Ann Lee,
artist biography
Kerry Ann Lee is a Wellington based multimedia artist and designer of Cantonese Chinese heritage. Her practice explores the cultural intersections between public and private spaces, and the issues of Cantonese Chinese settlement in New Zealand and the Pacific region. While playful and engaging, her work interrogates issues of identity and place, and the use and dissemination of cultural forms.
Lee has worked on projects and
exhibited across New Zealand and internationally. In 2008,
she produced the artist book Home Made, which
investigated the cultural history of Chinese settlement in
New Zealand. In 2014, she was commissioned by Te Papa to
produce a work for the lightbox tables in the creative maker
space within Ngā Toi | Arts Te Papa (the then
art galleries) titled Knowledge on a beam of
starlight. Lee is currently a Senior Lecturer at the
School of Design at Massey University and was the Creative
Director of the 2018 Asian Aotearoa Arts Hui.
She is
also a familiar face within Wellington’s DIY, punk, and
experimental music and art subcultures (and co-founder of
Up the Punks). She has been producing zines and
artist publications since the late 1990s.
Images
Images can be
downloaded from this dropbox link: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/f52hiyx672tg807/AAByX1rLjzd7y_fF3GZPJnV6a?dl=0
ends