A little bit of magic took place at Macandrew Bay Hall last week. 

Dunedin-based ceramic artist Zehavit Darlington's two-hour exhibition, Alice: an existential hikoi, will now have been disassembled and more than 200 individual pieces heading to the homes of the many children who were instrumental in their creation. 

The exhibition continued the evolution of Darlington's year-long project, a series of figurative ceramic works based on Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. 

Darlington completed a Mad Hatter as well as some mushrooms and carp for the exhibition last Friday. However, the artist plans to reconfigure aspects of the installation at a later date. 

''Some of the works I've produced are coming with me to Christchurch for an art residency at the end of October before they will be placed permanently at the Macandrew Bay Library.'' 

Darlington is referring to the inaugural Doris Lusk Residency, an award organised between the Dunedin School of Art Foundation and Risingholme Community College in Christchurch, which last year marked its 70th anniversary. 

About 200 children (the majority from Macandrew Bay School, about 20 from Grant's Braes School and several from Broad Bay School) produced small-scale ceramic figurines, the interpretations of which varied widely. 

''There's quite a difference between what a 5-year-old will do and what a 10-year-old produces,'' Darlington says. 

In an example of life imitating art, she had to glue more than a few items back together. Off with their heads, indeed.