Dibble war art stymied over funds

INSPIRATION: Artwork for Paul Dibble's earlier sculpture that now stands in Hyde Park, London. PHOTO/SUPPLIED

Plans for an artistic tribute to Featherston's war contribution are meeting difficulties, with a recent funding refusal and trouble with the location.

Featherston Camp Memorial Trust's Bernard Jervis said on Friday "it was disappointing" for trust members to have been turned down in their application for $250,000 from Trust House to fund a sculpture by New Zealand artist Paul Dibble.

The sculpture is planned to commemorate the Featherston Military Camp, where two-thirds of New Zealand troops were trained for WWI, before trekking over the Rimutaka Hill and sailing to war.

The plans call for 10 columns with relief work on each side, leaning forward like soldiers walking uphill.

Paul Dibble has built a similar work in Hyde Park, London - a series of column-like standards carved in New Zealand themes to honour the nation's European war dead.

The Featherston proposal was inspired by this piece.

Mr Jervis said Trust House, with whom sculpture supporters have been in discussion, had said they would not fund the proposal "at this time ... so we'll go back in due course".

The camp trustees were due to meet yesterday and discuss other funding options and "putting [the plan] on a more formal footing" with South Wairarapa District Council.

There were also issues with the space set aside for the monument in the current plan on the square - which the group is hoping to renegotiate with council.

"One of the things we wanted was to put it on a more formal basis," he said. "I do know the council wants to start down the track of building the square."

Mr Jervis said it was "100 years since the opening of the camp in January" and it would be good to have it complete for the anniversary.

The group was "not entirely satisfied" with the space it had been allocated in the current square plan, given "what we are wanting to do is quite a significant artwork".

Securing the services of Dibble had been integral to the proposal from the start, Mr Jervis said.

"The idea was they have that [sculpture] over there, and we have this over here."

Most of the soldiers who left Featherston headed for the Western front, which brought an obvious connection to the Hyde Park work, he said.

"So we were pretty keen to get [Dibble] on board."

He stressed the sculpture was "not a war memorial - Featherston already has one of those", but honoured the town's wartime contribution in hosting the training camp on its doorstep.