New view of NZ’s past

New view of NZ’s past

19 April 2016

Young Country brings together 19th century photography and contemporary poetry to offer a new and often surprising view of New Zealand’s past.

Combining the talents of poet, writer and researcher Kerry Hines and photographer Wayne Barrar, Young Country opens at MTG Hawke’s Bay on30 April.

Hines used the black and white photography of William Williams as inspiration and wrote poems to accompany a selection of his work. She drew on both the subjects and contexts of those images, and incorporated fictional elements to create a multi-faceted body of work.

Williams was a Railways employee who worked and photographed widely through the country from about 1881 to 1940. His outstanding photographs reflect the rawness of New Zealand’s changing landscape as well as its beauty, and offer intriguing and unusual portraits of family and friends at work, home and play.

The exhibition presents Williams’ images in the form of contemporary hand-made albumen prints made specifically for the show by Barrar.

Williams’s principal archive, held by the Alexander Turnbull Library, consists mainly of negatives, and scans of these would typically be used to make digital prints for public viewing. By using the 19th century albumen method instead, Barrar’s prints not only yield beautiful tones and details, but also results in a similar visual feel to the prints Williams and his peers would have produced.

Albumen prints are rarely made today since the process is complex, painstaking and time-consuming. On a few occasions albumen exhibition prints have been made overseas using historic’ negatives, but this is believed to be the first time this has been done in New Zealand.

The exhibition is accompanied by a book, Young Country (Auckland University Press, 2014), which will be available from MTG Hawke’s Bay during the exhibition.

Young Country’s development was supported by Mahara Gallery, and it is toured by Exhibition Services Ltd.

Hines’ work has been published in books and literary journals here and overseas. She has given readings and presentations on her work in the UK, USA, Australia, Iceland and NZ. Young Country draws on her PhD in creative writing (Victoria University, 2012), as does her essay “William Williams and ‘The Old Shebang’”, in Early New Zealand Photography: Images and Essays, published by University of Otago Press in 2011.

Barrar is an internationally recognised photographer with an extensive record of exhibition and publication in photography. He has a long-standing interest in the history of photography, and is Associate Professor (Photography) at the School of Art, Massey University Wellington.

Kerry Hines and Wayne Barrar will hold a floor talk about Young Country at MTG Hawke’s Bay at 11am on 30 April.

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