Chapungu exhibition shipping, weight, and installation

Voice: Roy Guthrie


The exhibit comes over in containers and the pieces are packed
individually into large crates, wooden crates, and when they travel
over the water, over the sea, they come across in containers. But
once they are in the country, they're moved around from exhibition
to exhibition on great big flatbeds still in their crates.

Most pieces weigh between 1,000 pounds and 8,000 pounds and
in height they range between about 3 feet and 10 to 11 feet.

We install the pieces in botanical gardens on logs and we use
forklifts and cranes depending on the size. If we go onto lawns
we put down mats and we run the forklift onto the mats and we
place them on logs. Logs are not cut down trees; they are trees
which are storm damaged. We place the log and then we pin the
sculpture to the log and we like logs because they are very organic
and the sculpture is organic and it looks great on logs. So we
normally use logs in terms of the bases and also the sculpture
doesn't need polished surfaces and fancy bases to enhance it,
it speaks for itself.