The phantom boat in the sky

When I was in Christchurch earlier in the month for my conference, I made quite a few trips walking between the Convention Centre and one of our other venues, the Cranmer Centre (about 5 mins away). On the day we arrived, a number of us did a double-take; we could have sworn there was a boat hanging off a crane mid-air in Cranmer Square. Deciding to come back the next day armed with a camera, of course it had disappeared. Hmm.

I am back in Christchurch now for two days. On my ride into town, there was the boat in the sky again. Sooo ... determined to not be caught out again, I went for a walk at lunch time to see my boat in the sky. And, once again, it had disappeared.

It turns out that the boat is part of a local biennial art in public space exhibition called SCAPE. See change is by local artist, James Oram. Here is a description of the art piece from the website:

Oram has developed a work consisting of a small sailing boat, hanging from the end of a mobile crane in Cranmer Square. This work brings together two important symbols of the transformation and development in Christchurch and uses them to comment on the changing values associated with urban development: the boats and ships from the past and the cranes from the present. It also refers to the geographical closeness of the city to the coastline, while creating a vision that we do not expect to see in the skyline.

Here's what See change is meant to look like:

But here's what the Canterbury nor-wester has reduced it to today:
Oh well, c'est la vie.