![](/media/cache/db/99/db99f14d4c44b6cf11c11f8ba484ff7d.jpg)
Alfred C. Barker Sarah Elizabeth (Lizzy) Barker c.1861. Glass plate collodion negative. Collection of Canterbury Museum (1944.78.255)
This exhibition is now closed
Uncovering the remarkable, largely unseen work of early New Zealand photographers.
Hidden Light is an exploration of an often overlooked aspect of our artistic past. This exhibition highlights the contribution of pioneering photographers at work in nineteenth-century Te Waipounamu. Spectacular landscapes by skilled amateurs and professionals join powerful images of tangata whenua, settlers and mining scenes. Unseen work by a small number of early women photographers is also included. This exhibition is accompanied by a superb new publication produced by the Gallery.
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Date:
2 February – 25 August 2019 -
Curator:
Ken Hall -
Exhibition number:
1060
Related reading: Photography
![Hidden Light: Early Canterbury and West Coast Photography](/media/cache/e2/3f/e23f937a19fb02fe330ee0aab210ee4c.jpg)
Hidden Light: Early Canterbury and West Coast Photography
In uncovering the remarkable, largely unseen work of early New Zealand photographers, Hidden Light: Early Canterbury and West Coast Photography is an exploration of an often overlooked aspect of our artistic past. This publication highlights the sometimes unsettling stories of photographers at work in nineteenth-century Te Waipounamu.
Spectacular landscapes by skilled amateurs and professionals join powerful images of tangata whenua, settlers and mining scenes. The stories and work of several little-known pioneering women photographers are also given new attention.
Published with the assistance of the Friends of Christchurch Art Gallery.
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Scottish-born brothers John Tait (1836–1907) and Alexander Tait (1839–1913) established themselves as photographers in gold rush Hokitika in about 1866, the period in which Catton’s The Luminaries is set. While building up a broader picture of photographers for the Hidden Light: Early Canterbury and West Coast Photography book and exhibition, I recalled an interview with the novelist at around the time of her 2013 Man Booker Prize success, and her mention of having restricted her reading for a year before starting the novel to nothing published after 1866, giving the National Library’s Papers Past credit as a vital source. The trails and condensed stories of many of the photographers in Hidden Light were largely brought together via this same indispensable means.
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Of landscape itself as artefact and artifice; as the ground for the inscribing hand of culture and technology; as no clean slate.
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