Taika Waititi Hung A Zeekr From The Ceiling And Called It Art

Most car ads follow the same script, with a winding coastal road, a drone shot and a bloke in a quarter-zip looking very pleased with himself. Taika Waititi, it turns out, can’t stand them.

That’s partly why Spotlight, the Oscar-winning filmmaker’s new photographic exhibition with Zeekr, is far more interesting than your average brand collab. Waititi was handed the Zeekr 7X and given one rule, which was that the SUV’s headlights had to be the only light source in every single shot.

So he did the logical thing and hung the 2.3-tonne electric SUV from the studio roof on a custom rig, pointing it at the floor like the world’s most expensive desk lamp.

Beneath it, Waititi and his team built seven completely different worlds inside the one studio space, with every set physically constructed and every frame captured in camera. At a time when AI can knock up just about any image you ask for, there’s something deeply satisfying about someone doing it the hard way.

The seven images are titled UFO, Caveman, Disco, Body Builder, Feast, Paparazzi and Sunburn, and they lurch from an alien visitation and a warehouse rave to a red carpet swarm, which is roughly the tonal range you’d expect from the man behind What We Do in the Shadows and Hunt for the Wilderpeople.

Our pick is Body Builder, which pairs an inflatable muscleman with the 7X’s 475kW, though Sunburn, starring a sunburnt couple on the beach who couldn’t care less about the SUV hovering above them, runs it close.

“The best bit about these images is we composed each scene without much at all,” Waititi says of the shoot. “From an alien abduction, to inflatable bodybuilder companion, to sunburnt couple on the beach, it was all lit the same simple way. It forced me to be specific and single-minded about each scene.”

Photography isn’t brand new territory for him either. Long before Jojo Rabbit won him an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, Waititi had exhibited both paintings and photographs in Wellington and Berlin, so this is less a celebrity side quest and more a return to an old habit.

The project was cooked up in New Zealand with NordEast, the Giltrap Group offshoot that brings Zeekr into the country, but it’s squarely aimed at Australians too. Zeekr Australia managing director Frank Li says the partnership is about introducing locals to the brand in an unexpected and culturally relevant way, with the 7X now just over a year into its Australian life.

“It’s a collaboration that reflects our commitment to challenging convention and creating experiences that stand out,” Li says.

Challenging convention has become something of a habit for the brand this year, which has also launched a jet-grade luxury people mover, a 912hp performance EV and an ice driving program for Australian buyers.

Spotlight is showing at Studio 230 in Ponsonby, Auckland from 17 to 20 September, with free entry via booked time slots.

Australians who can’t justify a flight across the ditch can explore all seven images, plus a look at how they were made, at zeekrbytaika.com from 21 September. Whether a floating SUV shifts more cars than a drone shot of the Great Ocean Road remains to be seen, but it’s a much better story.