Exhibitions
Events
On display
The Histories Behind He Waka Eke Noa
Nelson King Cherrill Jane [Heni Tuia] and Elizabeth Macpherson 1879. Carte-de-visite albumen photograph. Collection of Anthony G. Rackstraw, Christchurch
Talk
Past event
Philip Carter Family Auditorium
Free
Join curator Ken Hall for an illustrated lecture as he unpacks the histories of objects brought to life in his exhibition He Waka Eke Noa.
He Waka Eke Noa looks at the ongoing legacy of colonialism in Aotearoa New Zealand. Portraits by Charles Goldie and Gottfried Lindauer join early photographs by Dr. A.C. Barker, from Alfred Burton’s celebrated 1885 Maori at Home series, and a small number of Ngāi Tahu portraits. Other works with local connections relate to John Robert Godley and the Canterbury settlement, including a portrait by author and short-term sheep farmer Samuel Butler.
Related reading: Talk, Free event
Exhibition
He Waka Eke Noa
18 February 2017 – 18 February 2018
Colonial-era portraits represent a legacy that illuminates the present.
Commentary
Such Human Tide
The exhibition He Waka Eke Noa brings together colonial-era, mainly Māori, portraiture alongside objects linked to colonisation – it’s a predictably uncomfortable mix. While the degree of discomfort may depend on one’s background or degree of connection to an enduringly difficult past, objects related to emigration and colonisation can be a useful lenses. As relics from a specific period in global history, when the movement of (particularly) European people was happening at an unprecedented scale, they hold stories with a measure of complexity that obliges an open-minded reading. There is no denying that they speak of losses and gains, of injustices and rewards.
