Between the Memory and the Silence

Auckland artist Helen Pollock memorialised WWl and her own "wonderful" father's history, in sculptures that reside at the Royal New Zealand Navy Museum in Devonport and the NZ War Memorial in Belgium. Her work Falls the Shadow comprises a grove of outstretched arms moulded from a mix of Kiwi clay and earth from Passchendaele, symbolising young soldiers mown down by gunfire. As this documentary reveals, her steel and clay work Victory Medal followed the footsteps of the New Zealand Division's French march and is on permanent exhibition in Le Quesnoy, the town Kiwi soldiers liberated in 1918. 

Arms like young saplings, arms mown down, their final gesture, helplessly reaching for a life promised, but denied. Gestures of futility, but gestures, to Helen, of hope that a life would arise from this futility.

– Former Auckland War Memorial Museum director TL Rodney Wilson on sculptor Helen Pollock's work Falls the Shadow

Key Cast & Crew

David Blyth

Director, Producer

Scott Ewing

Additional Editing

Neil Parker

Additional Camera Operator

Jed Town

Composer

Andrew McMillan

Sculptural Soundscapes

Stephen Latty

Camera