Locals will have the chance to experience a rare virtual insight into Christchurch's prohibited Red Zone this month, as part of an exhibition at Paraparaumu Beach's new The Basement Gallery.
Derived from Raumati photographer Glen Howey's popular publication Please Demolish with a Kind Heart, released last year, the 23 piece exhibition will include a unique three-dimensional panorama tour inside Christchurch's Basilica cathedral.
The exhibition, which runs from Saturday, April 16 until Sunday, May 15, will showcase the state the city was left in by February 2011's earthquake, which killed 185 people and turned the city on its head.
Mr Howey, an award-winning photographer who spent nine months working on the controversial photography project, shot 400 Christchurch homes in 2500 photographs from 2014 to 2015.
During that time, as he snapped scenes of broken buildings and shattered pathways, Mr Howey wondered how he could share the extent of the hard-hitting damage.
"One of the things that frustrated me was that, while I could take a photo from a certain direction and it was amazing, it was the entire 360 degrees of the building that blew my mind.
"So I thought about how I could capture that."
The virtual tour technology used by Mr Howey means Kapiti Coasters will be able to click on the image and essentially explore the entire building.
Having spent 10 hours stitching together multiple photographs of different sides, corners and surfaces of the Basilica, Mr Howey created the first and only virtual tour of the Red Zone's innermost scenery.
"I've also got a lot of stills from certain areas, which people can zoom right in on."
The exhibition, which will be open on Saturdays and Sundays over the month, between 10am and 3pm, will include copies of his 200-page book, which has been deemed a piece of New Zealand history.
As the second exhibition run at The Basement Gallery, which was opened in February, it follows an initial opening exhibition by Paraparaumu street artist Theo Arraj.
Mr Howey's exhibition will take place in the downstairs area of the Seaview Road-based premises, which also runs as an architectural design business, bed and breakfast and home of owners Darren and Sharon Hunter, of award-winning Hunter Architecture.
"I think the photographs are really going to sing," Mr Howey said. "I get to put them on the wall around a metre wide, so you'll see so much value in them."
The Basement Gallery is located at 3 Seaview Rd, Paraparaumu Beach.
