Kingsley
Baird

The cloak – a gift of friendship from the people of New Zealand to the people of Nagasaki – symbolises consolation, protection, and solidarity. It also expresses ambivalence, reflecting conflicting interpretations of historical events. The sculpture's form – based on a Māori feather cloak – is covered with a perforated pattern of native New Zealand kowhai flowers.

Interactivity is central to visitors’ experience of the cloak. Its dynamic shape and the ground plane pattern ‘invite’ engagement: standing within the sculpture’s ‘embrace’ during sunlight hours, visitors’ bodies are cloaked in the projected flower pattern. By establishing a ‘photo opportunity’ in front of the sculpture, the cloak is also intended as a reflection of how the public encounter and respond to memorials. The paving design alludes to the contrasting human behaviours of creation and destruction. These are expressed by references to gravel patterns in a Japanese rock garden and the blast waves created by an atomic explosion.