Waitakaruru Arboretum celebrates final weekend of Stories in the Landscape exhibition

Wisdom of the Ancient One by Julie Mosdale is one of 30 sculptures featured in Stories in the Landscape 2022. Photo / Waitakaruru Arboretum

The Waitakaruru Arboretum and Sculpture Park in Tauwhare has reopened after Cyclone Gabrielle forced it to close for 11 days.

Dorothy Wakeling, who created the arboretum near the small village of Tauwhare in the Waikato with her husband John, says that thanks to their staff and volunteers, the arboretum’s paths are now safe and no sculptures were damaged.

“One bonus [of the cyclone] is that the park does have a new waterfall that might become a permanent feature,” Wakeling says.

Dorothy and John also have other good news to share: The park will soon have a cafe, called The Ruru’s Nest Café, which is expected to open within the next few weeks.

Once open, the cafe will be open on weekends serving coffee, pastries, ice creams, and lunches. On a weekday, the cafe will serve Duck Island ice creams between 10am and 5pm for everybody, but primarily cater for pre-booked groups who have ordered morning teas and lunches.

The park is also celebrating the final weekend of its annual Stories in the Landscape 2022 exhibition which will finish on Sunday, February 26.

Stories in the Landscape 2022 was curated by Auckland-based artist and Fieldays No.8 Wire National Art Award winner 2022 Gina Ferguson.

The exhibition showcases 30 sculptures from emerging and established artists and craftspeople from across Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia, including clay artist Carla Ruka, Rebecca Rose, Marcus Tatton, and Iain Cheeseman.

Ferguson says Stories in the Landscape generates new conversations through the breadth of stories that are shared and located within the landscape.

“The stories of the sculptures are diverse: Personal, cultural, environmental, political, local and global. Some emerge from the material and making process. As a collective story, it is one that acknowledges our diversity, gives voice to our embodied histories, whenua, place and time,” Ferguson says.

John and Dorothy Wakeling started the Waitakaruru Arboretum in 1991. Photo / Danielle Zollickhofer

The Waitakaruru Arboretum and Sculpture Park was created by the Wakelings who bought the 17.5ha property that used to be a greywacke quarry in 1991 with one big mission: To rehabilitate the land through the planting of all kinds of native, foreign, and rare plants, and to absorb carbon out of the atmosphere in order to slow down climate change.

Since the start of their mission, the couple have planted more than 20,000 trees.

In 2003, Waitakaruru held its first sculpture exhibition. Now Dorothy and John have more than 100 sculptures on their grounds permanently that can be viewed on a 2km loop walk.