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Steampunk HQ is an art collaboration and gallery in the historic 
Inside, the gallery presents a theme of a dark post-apocalyptic vision of a future "as it might have been". Contraptions and machinery featuring heavy use of copper, gears, pipes, gas cylinders, as well as an ensemble of skeletal sculptures are lit by flickering lights and accompanied by projectors and background sounds. Two large darkened rooms and part of the building's basement house a variety of old industrial and medical machines remade into " aetheric" devices. The exhibits include some large machines, such as a steam tractor, periodically emitting steam, and a boat with a
Steampunk HQ is an art collaboration and gallery in the historic Victorian
Victorian or Victorians may refer to:
19th century
* Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign
** Victorian architecture
** Victorian house
** Victorian decorative arts
** Victorian fashion
** Victorian literatur ...
precinct of Oamaru
Oamaru (; ) is the largest town in North Otago, in the South Island of New Zealand, it is the main town in the Waitaki District. It is south of Timaru and north of Dunedin on the Pacific Ocean, Pacific coast; State Highway 1 (New Zealand), Sta ...
, New Zealand. Opened in November 2011, it celebrates its own industrial take on steampunk
Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction that incorporates retrofuturistic technology and Applied arts, aesthetics inspired by, but not limited to, 19th-century Industrial Revolution, industrial steam engine, steam-powered machinery. Steampun ...
via an array of contraptions and sculptures, complemented by audiovisual installations. A yard also contains a collection of other industrial parts and projects in various stages of completion.
Steampunk HQ is located in the former Meeks Grain Elevator Building, a historic building registered with by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust
Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga (initially the National Historic Places Trust and then, from 1963 to 2014, the New Zealand Historic Places Trust; in ) is a Crown entity that advocates for the protection of ancestral sites and heritage bui ...
as a Category I structure.
Outside of the free-standing stone building, a coin-operated "steampunk" railway engine greets visitors. This NZR DS class
The NZR DS class locomotive is a type of 16 diesel shunting locomotives built by the Vulcan Foundry and supplied by the Drewry Car Co from 1949–1955, for New Zealand Railways (NZR).
Introduction
In the late 1940s, NZR was looking for a mor ...
diesel locomotive has been heavily modified with lights, engine, and train whistle noises, and fire breathing out of its chimney. The building's exterior walls are decorated with creations such as giant flies made from metal and industrial parts.
Inside, the gallery presents a theme of a dark post-apocalyptic vision of a future "as it might have been". Contraptions and machinery featuring heavy use of copper, gears, pipes, gas cylinders, as well as an ensemble of skeletal sculptures are lit by flickering lights and accompanied by projectors and background sounds. Two large darkened rooms and part of the building's basement house a variety of old industrial and medical machines remade into " aetheric" devices. The exhibits include some large machines, such as a steam tractor, periodically emitting steam, and a boat with a grim reaper
The Grim Reaper is a popular personification of death in Western culture in the form of a hooded skeletal figure wearing a black robe and carrying a scythe. The annual Steampunk NZ Festival is held every Queen's Birthday Weekend in early June, with three days of activities, including a fashion show and ball. The Libratory art gallery next door in the Woolstore displays and sells steampunk artwork and sculptures.
References
External links
* {{official website, steampunkoamaru.co.nz Buildings and structures in Oamaru Art museums and galleries in New Zealand Steampunk