<
https://theconversation.com/the-past-in-a-different-light-how-maori-embraced-and-rejected-the-colonial-camera-lens-225785>
"By the 1870s, photography was a ubiquitous presence in the colonial life of
Aotearoa New Zealand. For Māori, however, it was also a colonising tool – part
of the colonial practices of land alienation, war and propaganda that affected
them so deeply.
This complex Māori engagement with photography features in
A Different Light:
First Photographs of Aotearoa, an exhibition that opens today in Auckland.
A collaboration between Tāmaki Paenga Hira–Auckland War Memorial Museum, the
Alexander Turnbull Library and Hocken Collections Uare Taoka o Hākena, the
exhibition and associated book from Auckland University Press showcase the
photographic riches of three nationally significant collecting institutions.
Starting with the arrival of photography in Aotearoa in the 1840s, the book and
exhibition chart technological developments and cover a wide range of
photographic genres, from studio portrait to amateur photography.
These photographic beginnings were deeply embedded in the making of the settler
state. Its invention coincided precisely with the signing of
Te Tiriti o
Waitangi/Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, which ushered in formal British
colonisation.
And it was also in the region where
Te Tiriti was signed that Captain Lucas
of the French barque Justine is believed to have experimented with making
daguerreotypes in 1840-41.
Because of these links, photography’s technological development and its
different uses can’t be understood without reference to the political, cultural
and economic contexts of colonisation."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
