Maori Feast At Remuera

Concept, design and production of Maori Feast interactive installation at Auckland War Memorial Museum.

The Maori Feast Interactive was created as part of Auckland Museum’s Kai To Pie Exhibition. The museum had a lithograph based on an 1844 watercolour by Joseph Jenner Merrett, depicting one of the largest Maori feasts ever recorded.

The artwork is incredibly detailed and the visual display solution cried out for an interactive fly through, allowing people to zoom in and discover key parts of the intricate scene. We re-engineered the entire artwork, dividing the scene up into a number of 3D planes, which often meant gracefully re-creating parts of the scene art. The scene was integrated into a stage-set-like environment and a virtual camera rig was used to zoom into the desired areas of interest. These camera passes form the basis of the user-controlled zoom-ins. Enlarged areas of focus were re-illustrated in a detail faithful to the original artwork. Subtle animation effects and soundscapes bring the canvas to life.

In May 1844, Auckland was home to one of the largest Maori feasts ever recorded.

Around 4000 guests assembled between Mt Hobson (Remuwera) and Mt St John (Titikopuke) for the Maori feast. For four days they dined on 9000 sharks and 11,000 baskets of potatoes.

When Governor FitzRoy arrived on the first morning of the feast he witnessed two groups of 800 Maori warriors perform a thunderous haka (Maori dance) before charging at each other in a mock battle. The entire event was a spectacular display of Maori power and strength.