Photography tutor finalist in Montana Book Awards

Wintec School of Media Arts photography tutor David Cook photo-documentary named a finalist in the prestigious Montana book Awards

The book, Lake of Coal: the Disappearance of a Mining Township, tells the story of Rotowaro, once a mining township on the Waikato coalfields west of Huntly. Situated in the path of an opencast mine, it was entirely removed in the late 1980s to access coal for the Huntly Power Station. The destruction of this community is the subject of Lake of Coal, a 20 year photo-documentary project by New Zealand photographer David Cook.

Originally initiated by the Waikato Museum of Art and History this groundbreaking book is a complex weave of photographs and text, a multi-layered work of social history that tells the story of Rotowaro from the point of view of the tangata whenua, the workers, their families, management and the photographer himself.

Lake of Coal puts a human face on the economic realities of the late twentieth century and asks the questions: What does coal mining mean on a local level? What happens when a community loses the ground beneath its feet?

One of the richest photographic investigations of location and 'place' that has been carried out in New Zealand.

2007 Illustrative Finalist

Lake of Coal: The Disappearance of a Mining Township

David Cook
Craig Potton Publishing / Ramp Press
978-1-877333-52-1 RRP $49.99

Rotowaro was once a mining township on the Waikato coalfields west of Huntly. Situated in the path of an opencast mine, it was entirely removed in the late 1980s. The destruction of this community is the subject of Lake of Coal, a 20 year photo-documentary by photographer David Cook.

David Cook is a photography lecturer in Wintec (Waikato Institute of Technology) School of Media Arts. He is also part of Wintec’s Media Arts’ Creative Industries Research Centre. He comes from a background of professional and museum photography and has an interest in long-term social documentary projects. His work is held in major collections including Te Papa. Lake of Coal is the culmination of the three phases of his documentary project. The first phase, Rotowaro: The Last Days of a Waikato Coal Mining Township (1985) looked at the life of the community. This was followed by Off the Map: The Story of Rotowaro (1989) which examined the transitional phase of the community when residents and buildings were removed from the township site. His third phase, Memory Maps, explored the environmental and psychological impact of the mining activities on the townspeople of Rotowaro.

Montana Book Awards

The Montana New Zealand Book Awards celebrate excellence in, and provide recognition for, the best books written and illustrated by New Zealanders each year.

_Category Awards

Awards are made in eight categories: Fiction, Poetry, History, Biography, Reference & Anthology, Lifestyle & Contemporary Culture, Environment and Illustrative.

Up to twenty-six finalist books are selected across the eight categories - up to five in the Fiction category and up to three in each of the non-fiction categories.

The winner in each category receives a prize of $5,000 and is eligible for the Deutz or Montana Medal.

ENDS

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