All Creatures Great by Paul Dibble, 1996

The concept of All Creatures Great was drawn from a children’s book which demonstrated the size of a whale as equal to the height of 10 elephants.

On one side, the whale rises on its tail from an atrium pond, while on the other side the elephants are stacked on top of each other. These two endangered species together support a lintel, on which rests an oversized arm holding a plumb-bob.

The work is a comment by Dibble on the power mankind has over nature; the future of the world’s largest land and sea mammals lies in our hands. In this way, the work combines notions of protection, preciousness and the precarious balance of nature.

When the Palmerston North City Library moved across The Square to a new site, it sought to introduce a completely new philosophy. As well as people coming to the library to take out reading material, it aimed to welcome them in to “the living room of the city” by arranging the environment in a new way. This project was undertaken by Head Librarian Anthony Lewis working with the firm Athfield Architects, the project headed by architect John Hardwick-Smith. Part of the brief involved including local artists’ work in the new building.

Originally the site for the sculpture was an area overlooked by the children’s section of the library (although this was later shifted), but the sculpture was always intended to be sited at the main entrance.

The concept for All Creatures Great was translated literally from a small model made seven years earlier. The idea came from a children’s book that demonstrated the size of a whale as being equal to the height of ten elephants stacked on top of each other. The sculpture features these ten elephants alongside a whale, rising on its tail from an atrium pond. The animals form the support for a pediment, on which is an arm holding a plumb bob. In its playful way it raises conservation issues, suggesting the power humans have on the mighty creatures of the world (the biggest land animal and the biggest sea animal), and instils notions of protection and the precarious balance of nature.

Dibble went on to work with architect John Hardwick-Smith again on Southern Stand: The New Zealand Memorial located at Hyde Park Corner in London.