Happy Waitangi Day to all our New Zealander readers – for those of us north of the Equator, today is an annual Kiwi holiday, celebrating the signing of the country’s founding documents; the Treaty of Waitangi. Now, to prove we’re not a bottomless fountain of knowledge – we do like to think we’re an honest lot here at We Heart – we’re going to hold our hands up and admit that, before we featured The Oyster Inn on Waiheke Island, we’d never heard of the Hauraki Gulf’s second-largest rock. In our defence, it is on the other side of the world to WH HQ. But this collection of sculpture installations on the same rather beautiful island east of the Auckland mainland suggests we have been guilty of quite an oversight, and it’s time to start putting that right.
The Headland Sculpture on the Gulf exhibition is held every two years and is celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2013. It might have passed us by so far, but The New York Times (who have a slightly bigger budget than us, to be fair) puts it in their top 50 places to visit, and tens of thousands of folks from New Zealand and beyond have been taking in the outdoor spectacle since it started. This year they are being treated to the work of a dozen artists; the spectacles range from rural graffiti to urban invasion, from the more conventional to the distinctly abstract. It’s certainly put the place firmly on our map.
![Sculpture on the Gulf, Waiheke Island](https://www.we-heart.com/upload-images/sculptureonthegulf2.jpg)
Bev Goodwin,
Not for Sale
![Sculpture on the Gulf, Waiheke Island](https://www.we-heart.com/upload-images/sculptureonthegulf3.jpg)
Jonathan Organ & Jessica Pearless,
Bunker Vision: HI-FI
![Sculpture on the Gulf, Waiheke Island](https://www.we-heart.com/upload-images/sculptureonthegulf4.jpg)
David Carson,
Baubles
![Sculpture on the Gulf, Waiheke Island](https://www.we-heart.com/upload-images/sculptureonthegulf5.jpg)
Terry Stringer,
Shrine for the Sea, Soil & Sky
![Sculpture on the Gulf, Waiheke Island](https://www.we-heart.com/upload-images/sculptureonthegulf6.jpg)
Nic Moon,
Breath
![Sculpture on the Gulf, Waiheke Island](https://www.we-heart.com/upload-images/sculptureonthegulf7.jpg)
Christian Nicolson,
Look darling it’s Tom and Nancy
![Sculpture on the Gulf, Waiheke Island](https://www.we-heart.com/upload-images/sculptureonthegulf8.jpg)
Jeff Thomson,
Knotty
![Sculpture on the Gulf, Waiheke Island](https://www.we-heart.com/upload-images/sculptureonthegulf9.jpg)
Peter Lange,
Every Home Should Have One
![Sculpture on the Gulf, Waiheke Island](https://www.we-heart.com/upload-images/sculptureonthegulf10.jpg)
Gregor Kregar,
“Pavilion Structure”