Present history

New Zealand has a complex history: rich with tradition and culture, though at times turbulent and bloody. Over recent decades, photographers have reflected on the meaning and ramifications of nationhood, often grounding their investigations in personal and wider histories.

The photographers in this display engage with the past in a number of ways. Noble and Peryer look back to earlier artists for inspiration. Semu, Barrar and Adams re-stage or re-interpret this earlier imagery in exciting and unexpected ways. The world that Reihana looks back to is a mythical one, but one she seeks to make real in the here and now. Through a meticulous documentation of their own times, Aberhart and Westra have made work that we now see as valuable witnesses to peoples changed or places long gone.

Work that engages with the past without contemporary relevance is itself irrelevant. Acknowledging this, these photographers make nuanced works in which they seek to inspire new understandings of identity and belonging.