Te Papa Tongarewa 2018

Gary Warner was commissioned to create large scale video projection elements for the entrance space and an atmospheric multi-speaker soundscape for the main exhibition hall of the feature exhibition Terracotta Warriors: Guardians of Immortality at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington, Aotearoa, 15 December 2018 – 22 April 2019. The soundscape was created in collaboration with Melbourne based artist and musician Ian Hamilton. 

Two floor-to-ceiling video projections screened on parallel walls of the double-height entrance space. The videos were slow-paced, showing head and shoulder portraits of different terracotta warrior figures, revealing the individual character and expression of each model, complimented by scenes of the archeological origins of the figures that lay buried and broken in the earth for 2000 years until their accidental discovery and restoration in the late 20th century.