A ‘Refuge’ at New Zealand Sculpture on Shore

MEDIA RELEASE 7th November 2016

For 10 days this month Fort Takapuna in Auckland will be transformed in to large outdoor sculpture park to raise money for Women’s Refuge New Zealand, and this year Women’s Refuge has teamed up with creative partners DoubleFish and set designer Chris Elliot to create a Refuge at the New Zealand Sculpture on Shore event.

Sculpture on Shore was started in 1995 by the Friends of Women’s Refuge Trust, and over the past twenty years the event has raised over $1.5m for Women’s Refuge to help women and children live free from violence. The event raises money from the proceeds of the ticket sales, as well as a percentage from the sales of the sculptures.

“We wanted to illustrate the strong and lengthy relationship we have with the Sculpture on Shore Event, and showcase the all the wonderful outcomes that this event has provided for women and children over the years; It’s really important for the public to see how just by attending the event, they can make a huge difference for the families we work with,” says Women’s Refuge Chief Executive Dr Ang Jury.

The refuge idea was collaboration between renowned set designer Chris Elliot, Women’s Refuge and creative partners DoubleFish as a way of maintaining a presence at the event, but also showing New Zealand some of the ways they help families and how they event has helped them do this over the years. Appearing as an innocuous black box from the outside, the ‘Refuge’ takes the public through a warm and inviting journey showcasing the work of Women’s Refuge and Sculpture on the Shore. Furnished with items from the Kowhai tree, a distribution centre for second hand donations for clients of refuges, which also double as a second hand shop for the public; these items will be available to the public for sale. The Kowhai Tree is a project that was funded by part of the proceeds of the 2014 event.

A large portion of the proceeds of past events have gone to projects to help provide support and services for children; because although there is limited government funding in this area, most of the services provided for children by Women’s Refuge are unfunded.

“People have a perception of Women’s Refuge as an organisation of safe houses and that we just help women, yet just under half of our clients are children, and most of our work is community based. We have notoriously horrific rates of domestic violence and unfortunately the majority of the time police are called to an incident, children are present. Creating a ‘refuge’ was a wonderful opportunity to show much of the other work we do beyond our safe houses that the Sculpture on Shore event has enabled us to do.”

New Zealand Sculpture on Shore runs from the 10th of November to the 20th at Fort Takapuna, Auckland. Tickets can be bought online at iticket.co.nz

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