The Long View –
Auckland Photographs, 2014 – 2017
Mary Macpherson
29 May – 22 July, opening 28 May from 6pm
Master Bedroom and Boardroom
Auckland Festival of Photography exhibition
Harking back to the 19th Century when artists like Alfred Sharpe and John Kinder were making images of the city-in-progress that would become colonial Auckland, Mary Macpherson’s ‘long view’ of Tāmaki Makaurau is both a product of its times and an imaginative response to the subtropical metropolis.
Her photo-sequence also asks questions of its subject: To what extent does the evolving urban environment reflect the needs, desires and dreams of its population? Do the communities that live and work within the metropolis determine its shape and direction, or is the city the orchestrator and shaper of the lives of its citizens?
Born in Dunedin in 1952, Mary Macpherson has lived for many years in Wellington. A published poet as well as a photographer, she has exhibited widely in public and dealer galleries. Notable among her publications is Old New World (Lopdell House Gallery 2012), a photobook exploring changes in New Zealand society as manifest in small rural towns. Accompanying The Long View is a 44-page book, available at the gallery shop.
Text by Gregory O’Brien
Please join us for the opening celebration on Monday 28 May from 6pm. We will also be celebrating the opening of Roberta Thornley: Round and Round.
