By Juliet Speedy
This Saturday marks 30 years to the day that the ill-fated Air New Zealand Flight 901 crashed into Mount Erebus, killing all 237 passengers and 20 crew on board.
On Friday, six family members of those who perished will be flying to the crash site.
Other families have been composing messages for a specially designed capsule that will be taken to, and left at, the spot.
The finished capsule is being blessed before its final journey to Mt Erebus.
It is the work of renowned Christchurch sculptor Phil Price who says the project has been one of the most important of his life.
“And in the sense of its uniqueness I feel that it's one of the strongest artworks that I've ever done.”
Mr Price was asked to design a small capsule to hold the messages from family members of those who died at Erebus.
Wanting to do more than just a box, he decided on a simple koru sculpted from a large single block of aluminium.
“It's a challenge, I might be viewing it as an artwork but it's also a reasonable piece of engineering.”
He designed it first of all with a 3d modelling package.
Adam Cheamly, a Shamrock Industries CNC machinist says Mr Price took the model to them and they confirmed that it was possible to be machined.
A single white cross stands at the Erebus crash site in the desolate and exposed part of Antarctica.
Now the 26kg koru will stand on the base of the cross.
It will be flown to Scott Base then helicoptered to the site.
Lou Sanson from Antarctica NZ says the crash happened in a remote part of Antarctica.
“It's a very sacred site, obviously due to what's happened there.”
Mr Price chose the koru for its symbolism and because, for both Erebus and the Perpignan crash in France a year ago, the tail piece was the last visual memory.
“We've lived with that and it's been a distressing, powerful memory for all of New Zealand,” he says.
His art will now sit forever in the very remote part of Antarctica dwarfed by Mount Erebus.
“It is in an incredibly beautiful place, when you look up at Lewis Bay and you see the ocean and these dramatic icebergs, but it's an incredibly hostile place too,” says Mr Sanson.
“This is an extremely powerful, powerful concept and, historically, very important, so I'm humbled by the whole project,” says Mr Price.
The capsule's journey to Antarctica has already begun.
Six family members of the dead will head down to the ice on Friday for a blessing at the crash site.
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