Category Archives: Photography

DESIGN GENERATION: How Peter Haythornthwaite shaped New Zealand’s design-led enterprise
Michael Smythe
With an introduction and interview by Michael Barrett

This book tells the story of one of New Zealand’s most influential industrial designers. Spanning five decades, Design Generation documents Haythornthwaite’s career through childhood influences, education in Auckland and Illinois, work experience in California and New York, and teaching and consultant practice back in New Zealand. It chronicles his many roles as a design leader: as innovator of design, employer in private practices and his notable contribution to the wider field of design.  Vivid case studies of Haythornthwaite’s work illustrate the … Continue reading →

CARBON EMPIRE
Allan McDonald

Winner New Zealand Photobook of the year award 2017.

Carbon Empire works in the space between art and documentary photography.

It combines a short series of staged photographs of a ‘man in the street’ made in 1997 with images of closed petrol stations photographed between 2003 and 2017.

Carbon Empire is a juxtaposition of these two series of photographs and a single image, made by chance in 2002.

The closed petrol stations reflect the effects of petroleum law changes across New Zealand. In 1988, the petroleum sector became deregulated, with the large international wholesalers able to … Continue reading →

WHENUA FONUA ‘ENUA

Benjamin Work with photographs by Brendan Kitto
Interview with Benjamin Work by Giles Peterson

Published by Rim Books in association with Uxbridge Art & Culture.

Early Polynesian navigators gave names to the places they encountered as a reminder of the spiritual threshold between creation and reality. This was because they regarded the ideas of geographic and spiritual origin as mutually similar. Whenua Fonua ‘Enua explores the significance of name and place and the importance of these indicators that connect us to our past and highlight the characteristics of our present. Through new paintings and this companion publication in … Continue reading →

TOM HUTCHINS: SEEN IN CHINA 1956
Edited by John B. Turner. Chinese translation by Han Niu.

Published by Turner PhotoBooks, Auckland/Beijing in collaboration with PhotoForum Inc, Auckland, NZ, 2016 as Photoforum issue 86.

English and Chinese text

This bi-lingual book was produced to coincide with the debut exhibition of photographs made in China 60 years ago by the pioneering New Zealand photojournalist and photographic educator, Tom Hutchins (1921-2007), presented at the 2016 Pingyao International Photography Festival.

‘On the platform there are many people waiting to cross the other way, waiting for the train back to Hong Kong. . … Continue reading →

Stomp book cover

STOMP
Jon Carapiet

The photographs in STOMP, taken in Europe, India and Egypt since 2014, respond to the destruction of cultural identity and historical sites tracing back millennia, and today manifested by events from Bamiyan to Palmyra. STOMP explores themes of photographic portraiture and ‘the gaze’ in the context of destruction, questioning how we connect and identify with the other.

Since his first installation ‘Headlines’ in 1994 which featured images of a screaming Princess Diana and Prince Charles appropriated from the tabloid media, Jon Carapiet’s work has dealt with humanitarian and global themes as well as issues around … Continue reading →

BRAINWASH-INGTON DC: A 1982 PHOTOGRAPHIC ‘ON THE ROAD’
Stuart Page

It features photographs Page took on a 6 month journey around USA that he made soon after his graduation from Ilam School of Fine Arts, where Shustak taught. It was an ambitious undertaking, funded by the NZ government arts council, and a rare opportunity for him to take his learning from the school into practice on the streets of where the art came from. Page says, in his introduction to the original exhibition of the resulting photographs in 1984:

“The most exciting and relative communication seemed to … Continue reading →

AMERICAN LANDSCAPE: SHUSTAK USA 1960–1971

This publication showcases photographs made by Larence Shustak before he left USA in 1973 to establish the photography department at the School of Fine Arts in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Shustak was part of an early ferment on the East Coast of the emerging awareness of photography as an independent tool of art, self-expression and social engagement, existing outside of the mainstream picture magazines and commercial studios. American Landscape samples Shustak’s early experiments, commissions and personal projects that reflect an evolving sense of a time in transition, seen through the artist’s … Continue reading →

Old New World book cover

OLD NEW WORLD
Mary Macpherson

Mary Macpherson spent seven years traveling New Zealand to photograph change in New Zealand reflected in small towns, recording the old, the derelict, the ready-made symbol and moneyed development. Old New World is a quality hardback with a dust jacket and 62 images across 96 pages. It also features an interview between Mary and noted art writer/curator, Gregory O’Brien.

“I worked on the project for several years – making journeys around the country whenever I could – photographing, and then spending long periods thinking about what I was doing. The photographs feature … Continue reading →

BETWEEN THE SILENCE AND THE FLAME
Allan McDonald

“The Silent Generation is defined by people born between 1925 and 1945, who had come to maturity as I was growing up. Raised under the dictum of being seen but not heard, and affected by war and economic depression, they have been described as focused on financial security and more politically compliant than other generations. Putting aside the problematics of generational stereotyping, by the time I reached the age of 18 the silence was not so loud and multiple voices of diversity and dissent were becoming more audible. These photographs, … Continue reading →

A SPOONFUL OF SUGAR
Ann Shelton

Photographs, texture, historical documents and a fictional short story weave a book about a house, in the suburb of Wilton in Wellington, New Zealand.

“I moved in to this house amid stories about its commissioner, a trail-blazing woman and the one responsible for bringing the woodwind instrument, the recorder, to New Zealand. The narrative of her and her architect’s lives struck me as still critical and relevant today as we pull down the metaphorical garage door on refugee access to New Zealand and as we uncover and foreground the unnoticed roles … Continue reading →