Translating the Real [Curatorial exercise]

Abstract

Every photograph is a translation from the real. In this process the real becomes an artifact, one that’s been mediated by the choices of the photographer to a greater or lesser extent. Artists working with archives and the photographic document have long recognised the tension between the subjective way memory is socially constructed while attempting to stay true to the world around them. This exhibition looks at artists working across the archive, the document and the subjective.

... collaboration between the four-person collective, Local Time, and Ngāpuhi photographer John Miller. This resulted in presenting a selection of Miller’s photographs on Te Tii Marae at Waitangi in 2017. Local Time have long worked towards ways of reconciling the political, aesthetic and cultural dimensions of living in Aotearoa from a post-colonial perspective. Taking Miller’s work, representing fifty-plus years of documenting Māori land protest, onto this site for Waitangi Day, was a moment loaded with possibility. ...

VENUE AND TIMES: Toi o Wairaka, Unitec, Building 108, Carrington Road, Mount Albert, Auckland. 6 May - 5 June, 2025

ROLES: Allan McDonald (Curator), Frankie Ayers, Ziggy Bond, Caryline Boreham, Wendy Bornholdt, David Cowlard, Karlene Groves, John Miller, Local Time Collective, Izzy O’Hagan, Anna Suante, Sam Waddell (All artists)