Aotearoa is one of only seven countries that allow the practice of bottom trawling by commercial fishing companies, here and in international waters. Despite targeting only a few species that are then mostly exported to China and the US, the indiscriminate process is having huge effects on our biodiversity. Some of the many victims are our deep-sea coral forests. Often taking centuries to form, these aquatic nurseries provide a home to thousands of other species and are described as our kauri forests of the seas.

In his Sculpture in the Gardens entry titled Bubblegum, Chris takes inspiration from the  bubblegum coral – the largest sea-floor invertebrate in the world. By scaling it up and placing it in the Gardens, out of the ocean context, Chris hopes to bring awareness to what is happening to our underwater forests.