{"id":186603,"date":"2025-12-16T14:05:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T14:05:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/186603\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T14:05:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T14:05:16","slug":"man-charged-with-stealing-diane-princes-please-walk-on-me-flag-which-went-missing-from-hastings-gallery-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/186603\/","title":{"rendered":"Man charged with stealing Diane Prince\u2019s \u2018Please walk on me\u2019 flag which went missing from Hastings gallery"},"content":{"rendered":"

First published on \"NZ<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Bryce<\/p>\n

\nBryce Gambirazzi (inset) has been charged with stealing a New Zealand flag defaced with the words “Please walk on me” from the Hastings Art Gallery.
\nPhoto: NZME\n<\/p>\n

A man charged with stealing a New Zealand flag, defaced with the words “Please walk on me”, from an art gallery said he went to the exhibition hoping that it would be hanging on a wall or behind a barrier.<\/p>\n

Instead, he found the flag on the floor, part of an art installation that has been provoking discussion and protest since it was first displayed 30 years ago.<\/p>\n

Bryce Gambirazzi, of Napier, said that he thought the installation was “unnecessarily divisive”.<\/p>\n

“It’s an interactive art piece and I interacted with it,” Gambirazzi told NZME.<\/p>\n

“[It’s] to provoke thought, right? A good piece of art will provoke thought,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It provoked me to think that maybe I should pick this up.”<\/p>\n

Gambirazzi, 38, said that security officers tried to stop him and there was a “small scuffle” as he took the flag away from the Hastings Art Gallery and got into his car on 4 December.<\/p>\n

“I understand under the eyes of the law, it’s theft, you know, but I don’t really see it as theft. I was just uplifting the flag, really.”<\/p>\n

Flag to be returned to gallery<\/p>\n

The next day, he was arrested and handed the flag back to police, who said it would be returned to the gallery.<\/p>\n

Gambirazzi appeared in the Hastings District Court on Friday charged with stealing the flag, which in court documents was given a dollar figure value – $15,000 – as the property of the artist, Diane Prince.<\/p>\n

No plea was entered.<\/p>\n

Prince first exhibited her installation Flagging the Future 30 years ago, as a critique of Jim Bolger’s Government and its cap on Treaty of Waitangi settlements.<\/p>\n

One of its elements was the New Zealand flag lying on the floor with the words “Please walk on me” stencilled on it, provoking an outcry and its removal from the Auckland Art Gallery.<\/p>\n

The work has prompted a similar response as part of a tour this year.<\/p>\n

It was withdrawn from display at the Suter Art Gallery Te Aratoi o Whakat\u016b in Nelson in May, after complaints that the invitation to walk on the flag was disrespectful.<\/p>\n

When it was exhibited at the Hasting Art Gallery Te Whare Toi o Heretaunga, it caused controversy and protest there too.<\/p>\n

Hastings councillor Steve Gibson said seeing the flag on the floor of the gallery with a sign inviting people to walk on it was a real shock.<\/p>\n

“That flag has been carried by New Zealanders in every major conflict and it holds deep meaning for many of us,” Gibson said.<\/p>\n

Gambirazzi also said the flag represented New Zealand as a country, and “I feel strongly about my country”.<\/p>\n

“To be honest, when I went over there, I was hoping it was behind a screen, behind some sort of barrier or potentially even on the wall \u2026 so you couldn’t actually physically stand on it,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Then I would understand it from more of a statement – a piece of artistic expression.<\/p>\n

“But I found it just in the middle of the floor. I thought, ‘Well, I can pick this up just as easy as I can stand on it’, so that’s what I’ve done,” Gambirazzi said.<\/p>\n

“If that was the Tino Rangatiratanga [M\u0101ori sovereignty] flag, or any other flag of any nation in that same position, I feel I would have been over there just as quick to do the same thing.”<\/p>\n

Gambirazzi will next appear in court on 13 January.<\/p>\n

Earlier, exhibition curator Gina Matchitt said, on behalf of Prince, that the reaction to the installation was like taking “a litmus test of the country”.<\/p>\n

“The purpose of it is to unpack dialogue and talk about what the flag means to you,” she said.<\/p>\n

“That often depends on your experience and upbringing.<\/p>\n

“To many M\u0101ori, the flag has a different meaning.”<\/p>\n

She said Prince was asking people to walk on it as a form of protest.<\/p>\n

“But you don’t have to. It’s a personal choice,” Matchitt said.<\/p>\n

* This story originally appeared in the New Zealand Herald<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"First published on Bryce Gambirazzi (inset) has been charged with stealing a New Zealand flag defaced with the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":186604,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-186603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}