Dunedin School of Art honours student Zac Whiteside’s artwork Behold Oz has been installed at the Otago Polytechnic campus.
The artwork, which is about the notions of misinformation and how we often misinterpret history, is the fourth iteration of Otago Polytechnic’s "Four Plinths Project" — which provides graduates with an opportunity to have their work shown in a public setting.
The work consists of four concrete sculptures with differing scales; a head eerily resembling actor Nicolas Cage, a giant thumb, an elbow crease and two trunkless legs.
Mr Whiteside spent about a month on the project and said the process consisted of clay moulding and casting of the concrete.
He wanted viewers to think the pieces were actual ruins excavated by an archaeological team, not an art installation.
"Each is from a different statue but, because they are displayed together, the assumption is that they represent the remains of a single work," he said.
He was inspired by the Percy Shelley poem Ozymandias, in which Shelley discusses a traveller who told him of the ruins of a once-great statue.
"The poem is a rather amusing commentary on power and legacy, Ozymandias’ words losing their potency to time and now read as irony.
"My work may involve some critical thinking to realise none of the pieces actually fit with each other," he said.
The sculpture aims to show how susceptible the world is to misinformation.
His artwork is not entirely finished, and Mr Whiteside said he would like to make a plaque containing a fictitious story he wrote.
The plaque would add to the work by convincing viewers the sculptures were real excavations with real history behind them.
Members of the public can visit the artwork in the quad at the Otago Polytechnic campus.
