Made From New Zealand will be launched on Waitangi Day 2007.

For the launch, we’ve commissioned installation artist Mike Mizrahi of Inside Out Productions to build a huge 100m long silver fern out of sand just south of the pier on Santa Monica Beach.

Why Los Angeles? Mike Mizrahi explains it best when he says: “The Californian coast is at the other side of the Pacific Ocean from New Zealand, and I love the idea of New Zealanders making a connection across such a vast distance.

It’s like the ripple we create here - through our thinking – somehow makes a huge impact around the globe”

By building the fern on the Californian Coast, we will literally be making New Zealand’s mark on the world.

Kiwi expatriates living in Los Angeles will help Mizrahi build the fern at 1.30pm local time, which means New Zealand will start to see the first images of construction at 10.30 on Waitangi Day.

Images will be screened via a live webcast on this website. For those of you who’d rather watch it on TV, Maori Television will be broadcasting live from Los Angeles during Waitangi Day.

If that sounds crazy, don’t worry, we’ve done it before. In 2001 we worked with Mike and his team to build a similar sculpture on Bethells Beach, West of Auckland, New Zealand. We made a three minute film of that and it was screened during the Oscar telecasts in New Zealand in 2002 and 2004 - to tip our hat and say thanks to the remarkable achievements of our Academy Award winners and nominees.

We’ve posted a cut of that film to YouTube with the soundtrack provided by Evermore. Evermore are three brothers from Fielding who are taking on the world, and winning, so we thought they were the perfect band to work with. The track’s not bad either.