Client: NZTE
Agencies: Workshop E, Haumi, Assembly

This was a once in a lifetime project — working on New Zealand’s pavilion at the World Expo 2020 in Dubai. It’s a colossal challenge to capture a nation and a culture in a few minutes of looping video, largely without dialogue, but that’s what I undertook when Workshop E asked me to work alongside the project’s Creative Director, Karl Johnstone from Haumi.

The entire project was themed around the story of the Whānganui river, captured in the line Ko au te Awa, ko te Awa ko au. — “I am the river, the river is me”. Visitors moved through the pavilion to a central space where this filmed played on the four walls around them.

My role in the project was capturing all the threads of the story coming from the client, the Whānganui iwi, the creative team and other stakeholders and articulating them as a single, clear narrative. This narrative then went to film director Greg Wood and the animation wizards at Assembly, who brought it to life.

So many drafts, so many difficult cuts and changes, but something truly remarkable at the end.