Two straight 26-meter long post and rail fences have been erected in parallel at Waitakaruru Arboretum, located in an uphill position, with a 600mm gap between the two parallel fences.  Using joinery nails, the panels have been suspended and secured horizontally in-between the two fences.  The end result is a fixed site-specific installation that measures 26.4meters x 600mm x 1,000mm.

With the lower end pointing directly towards Kawhia Harbour, acknowledging the final landing place of the Tainui waka, and with the upper end pointing directly towards the point where the sculpture park’s upper border intersects with the 1864 confiscation line, absolute divide is positioned in a narrow uphill clearing overlooking the fertile agricultural Waikato plains.  Once encountered at the sculpture park, visitors are able to get up close to this long linear installation that occupies a small hillside, and are able to peer down over and onto the surface of the image recreating the “sublime” experience of viewing earth from above.

The aerial photographs that make up absolute divide were taken at the very height of the Great Waikato Drought of 2008, just as the first drought-breaking rains arrived in Aotearoa/New Zealand on 21 February 2008.