Bruce Connew: A Vocabulary Heads To Waitangi Treaty Grounds

Waitangi Treaty Grounds’ newest exhibition features 79 photographs by renowned New Zealand photographer Bruce Connew which address the casualties of colonisation. The exhibition is being toured by Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery and opens this Saturday, 19 February.

Connew spent several years roaming memorials and gravestones of Aotearoa’s colonial wars. These wars took place across decades of the 19th century with ramifications into the 20th century and beyond. The memorials and gravestones are only one of many remnants of the wars, but a tangible one which has been documented in a book by Connew.

A snapshot of the book has been adapted into the exhibition, which includes He Mōteatea The Lament, and essay The Sandfly Nips...The Conversation Continues by Rangihīroa Panoho.

Waitangi Treaty Grounds Curatorial Manager Caitlin Timmer-Arends said the exhibition supports one of the Waitangi National Trust’s key objectives to be a hub for ongoing discourse about our Nationhood.

“The exhibition delves deeper into subjects featured in Te Rau Aroha Museum of the Price of Citizenship about the New Zealand Wars. It gives an opportunity for in-depth reflection on the language of colonisation and how as New Zealanders we have been shaped by the memorials of these conflicts.”

The exhibition will be open to the public from 19 February – 22 May 2022.

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