{"id":447883,"date":"2026-05-27T14:39:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T14:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/447883\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T14:39:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T14:39:11","slug":"pair-fundraising-for-solomon-islands-climate-change-sculpture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/447883\/","title":{"rendered":"Pair fundraising for Solomon Islands climate change sculpture"},"content":{"rendered":"

Taylor said that after hearing Bartlett speaking about the Solomon Islands they invited her to be a speaker at one of their events.<\/p>\n

She said: “It was such a wake up call for us both.”<\/p>\n

They also saw a BBC interview by Ade Adepitan about the island of Kale<\/a>, which has been lost to rising water levels, and wanted to do something to raise awareness.<\/p>\n

The sea around the Solomon Islands is rising faster than the average for the rest of the world<\/a>, due to global warming and regional changes. <\/p>\n

A number of islands have already disappeared beneath the South Pacific.<\/p>\n

Cullen said they heard Bartlett had approached a sculptor called Jason deCaires Taylor, who specialises in underwater art.<\/p>\n

He created a 4m (13ft) tall sculpture of Bartlett leaning against a tree on a concrete base, which could be submerged in the water.<\/p>\n

Taylor said the “Solomon Siren” would stand above the waves at first, but also record how sea levels were rising.<\/p>\n

By 2046, she said they expected the figure of Bartlett to be lost beneath the waves.<\/p>\n

Cullen said: “This is such a different approach from just telling us about the statistics and things, it’s an artistic, creative approach.”<\/p>\n

She said it was important for them to act to “give that sense of something that’s happening on the other side of the world, but is also happening here”.<\/p>\n

She pointed to extreme weather and flooding in Shropshire and said it was important to act on climate change.<\/p>\n

The money raised will be used to pay for a barge to take the sculpture to the spot where it will be submerged and then assemble it in the water.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Taylor said that after hearing Bartlett speaking about the Solomon Islands they invited her to be a speaker…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":447884,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[442,498,499,500,501,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-447883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447883","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=447883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}