The official tribute honouring an iconic New Zealand mariner was officially opened on Saturday 12 December 2009 at Voyager New Zealand Maritime Museum located at Auckland’s Viaduct Harbour. Blue Water Black Magic – A Tribute to Sir Peter Blake provides a world class and engaging museum experience where notions of teamwork, leadership, global thinking and responsibility are explored in simple, interactive ways. The tribute explores these characteristics as well as profiling many other key players, innovative designers and thinkers in New Zealand’s boating industry.
Centred on NZL32 Black Magic, the boat on which Team New Zealand led by Sir Peter won the America’s Cup in 1995 suspended by its own rigging from the near seven storey high central atrium the exhibition winds up over three levels in a superb Pete Bossley Architects-designed wing of the Museum.
Renowned exhibition designers Workshop e were responsible for the building and installation of the exhibition content specifying only Selecon luminaires for the exhibition lighting: 75 x Selecon Wing Wall Washers with barndoors and UV filters, 202 Aureol BeamSpots with UV filters, 30x Aureol BeamSpots and 46 x tungsten halogen Selecon Display Profiles .
Workshop e director, Az James, who as overall Project Manager for the exhibition, is well placed to comment on how the Selecon luminaires enhanced the exhibition, “I was extremely pleased with the way the selected Selecon fittings worked with the aesthetics of the exhibition and the architecture. The Selecon Wing Wall Washers, Aureol BeamSpots and BeamShapers worked extremely well with the new Selecon Display Profile units, providing us with the flexibility we needed within such a complex exhibition situation which combined areas of both controlled and uncontrolled natural light. The colour and form of the luminaires fitted well with the general exhibition spaces, while the black finish of the new SDPs blended flawlessly with the imposing centrepiece – NZL32.
The advice and technical support provided by the Phillips Selecon team was also invaluable throughout the design and installation processes.”
For one of the Workshop e team, this exhibition could not have been a more personal experience. Sarah-Jane Blake was a teenager when her father was shot and killed by pirates on 6 December 2001 while he was on an environmental exploration trip in South America, monitoring global warming and pollution for the United Nations. Each and every item on display at Blue Water Black Magic is of deep significance to her and she was instrumental in mounting and focusing the lighting for all of them.
“In the huge space that was to be BWBM I spent weeks up and down the ladder arranging the lights. Assembling the lights was very simple as I had never used them before but every step was logical and clear. The lights then fitted into the tracks with ease and could be switched with no hardship to the particular circuit and wattage they had to run on. I am a petite female (slightly lacking in muscle) but did not have a problem when hanging the lights. The three different types of lights we used performed to my high expectations in focusing on different objects and creating various washes of light. In the exhibition which was formed of sculptural objects of many sizes (lots of boats), small objects in acrylic cases and writing and images on wall panels and I found the Selecon Lights could be manipulated easily to lighting all of these,” comments Sarah-Jane.
Philips Selecon is extremely proud to have been involved in this epic acknowledgement for one of New Zealand’s greatest heroes.
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