Owen Mapp’s Ocean Balance and the Kāpiti whale story
A sperm whale on the western shore
A whale stranding and a carved work
In 1986 a very large sperm whale died and washed ashore on rocks on the western, seaward side of Kāpiti Island. The event is recorded here from a firsthand local account provided to Whale Song.
In 2007 Owen Mapp made Ocean Balance at Paraparaumu from sperm-whale lower-jaw bone and pāua. The work appears in an Australian Museum–Te Papa exhibition loan schedule, which also carries a Kāpiti Island, 1986 reference.
Together the stranding and the artwork tell two parts of Kāpiti’s modern whale story: an encounter with a great animal on the island’s exposed coast, and the transformation of whale bone into contemporary art.
Sources: firsthand local account supplied to Whale Song; Australian Museum–Te Papa exhibition loan schedule described in the Whale Song research collection.