Karen Crisp, Pakuranga Hunt, Ōtuataua (1945), 2009, Archival Inkjet Print, Courtesy the artist
Original photograph published in the New Zealand Herald, 18 June 1945, p7.
Another version appears in Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections Footprints 03204, courtesy of the Gunson family.
Our Place
Karen Crisp, Sarah Davis and Russ Flatt (Ngāti Kahungunu)
28 June – 9 August, 2023
First Floor Galleries
Our Place presents film and photography by Karen Crisp, Sarah Davis and Russ Flatt (Ngāti Kahungunu). These artists explore concerns of whenua at locations in Te Ika-a-Māui North Island, giving views of the past and our present situation. Whenua is that which bonds us, our grounding, our place. It has deep layering through time and linkages, it can be often contentious and fraught. The flooding events of the 2023 Auckland Anniversary and Cyclone Gabrielle were traumatic events for many, highlighting that whenua continues to be a significant national issue.
Karen Crisp’s two photographs show contrasting visions of the Ihumātao peninsula. One is taken of a pre-existing image, which Karen discovered in the living room of an elderly life-time resident, at the farmhouse of Ihumātao Quarry Road. The image itself, originally published in The New Zealand Herald in 1945 (photographer unknown) shows a party from the Pakuranga Hunt with their hounds. Members from this Hunt, long established in 1872, are shown in their red uniforms. Their presence imparts a cute regality that is also jarring with the land they encroach upon. Crisp’s other image is of a street scene like that seen in rural towns. The asphalt road with sections of concrete driveways and power poles presents a highly altered landscape, removed from the past.
Sarah Davis, That was worth the trek, 2022. Two channel projected moving image.
It really is a pretty little spot, 2022, Projected moving image.
Installation view: MFA Grad Show, 2022. Whitecliffe.
Sarah Davis is interested in how the land in Aotearoa was shaped by colonial ideals of the picturesque and sublime, which are also Art Historical tropes. Her enquiry follows a link with colonialism through the legal establishment of scenic reserves. Reserves were set in law, specifically The Scenery Preservation Act of 1903, a precursor to the 1977 Reserves Act. The 1903 Act allowed the Crown to compulsorily take Māori land for scenic reserves. Sarah Davis’s video works in this exhibition are developed from a photographic series of scenic reserves, notably of Thorp’s Quarry in Clevedon Scenic Reserve. Davis explains that she has altered her imagery to produce something sublime for our present moment:
By manipulating an image through techniques such as mirroring, inverting and overlaying one image over another, I have sought to create a constructed landscape image - in a literal sense of the word. An unreal scene, a digital utopia, an unobtainable place, recognisable yet unfamiliar.
Russ Flatt’s project Te Ahua, Te Wa, Te Atea of 2022 was produced as a moving image project for MTG Hawkes Bay (curated by Toni MacKinnon) and then presented with a series of still photographs at Tim Melville Gallery Auckland. The location of MTG was vital as it is within the Ngāti Kahungunu Rohe and the Heretaunga Block. Flatt’s initial enquiry regarded the history of Heretaunga Block - specifically how it was illegally obtained in the 1860s by English settler Thomas Tanner, followed by further land confiscations in the 1870s through dubious means. He used various sources (such as oral histories, interviews and historical archives) and his investigations broadened to other Rohe, of Ngāti Porau and Ngāti Te Whatuiāpiti - notably Ōtātara Pā, Te Whaeo Pā and Te Awarua ō Porirua. The works in this series are created with new imaging technology (3D LiDAR scanner film technology, drones and point cloud mapping).
Russ Flatt, Pani, 2022, inkjet photograph on Hahnemühle Photo Rag, courtesy the artist and Tim Melville Gallery