Many things were not in the fantasy Concept and Images: Solomon Mortimer and Zahra Killeen-Chance
‘Many things were not in the fantasy’ compels fact and fiction to play off against the family album. It is a collation of fragments from the relationship of Mortimer and Killeen-Chance that offer a slippage between their private lives, personal practices, and collaborative escapades. The eighty‐six plates they have produced together over the past three years resists a linear sequence and narrative logic. The banal domestic and public spaces have a non‐specificity that disrupts the notion of a fixed identity. Their performative inquiries remain an ambiguous record of Mortimer and Killeen‐Chance from 2014 to 2017.
Design: Solomon Mortimer Printed: Taiwan Size: 102mm (w) x 129mm (h) Paper: light weight offset. About 40-50gsm, white Binding: section sewn and glued Cover: PVC pocket Pages: 200
Dull Ache is a small photobook offering a place for readers to meander and seek solace. It was created by photographer Fiona Lascelles, in collaboration with poet Jasmine Gallagher. First published in early 2020, it is now in its second edition, and these are the last few hand numbered copies that will be available. It has been shown at both the Wellington Photobook Fair and Melbourne Artbook Fair in March 2020.
The following quote by Sally Mann guided the development of the interconnected words and images: “As for me, I see both beauty and the dark side of the things … and I see them at the same time … The Japanese have a phrase for this dual perception: mono no aware. It means “beauty tinged with sadness,” for there cannot be any real beauty without the indolic whiff of decay.” Sally Mann, Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs
The images are quiet, and while made in a period of grief, they are not an expression of sadness but a moment for pause. And the poetic fragments are brought together to form one long poem, which meanders through the pages, forming a conversation with the photographs. This form of ecoGothic poetry responds to the hope found in nature, as a source of solace: where death is revealed not as an ending, but as a crucial part of the endless cycle of regeneration.
The dust jacket unfolds to a secret image, a secret garden, a place of contemplation. A postcard with this image is also included should the reader be willing to share their own thoughts, extending the conversation.
Jasmine Gallagher is a poet, art critic and doctoral candidate at teh University of Otago, where she is reserching landscape mythology in contemporary New Zealand art and poetry.
Fiona Lascelles is an Auckland art director who photographs the quiet and unassuming moments she encounters while going about her day.
ENTOURAGE: aka Physical Distance Theory, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Videogames
by Tim J. Veling
Self-published artist book from Otautahi Christchurch. Available from Rim Books in limited quantity.
Author of Red Bus Diary (2006), Veling began photographing his home city of Christchurch well before the 2010-11 quakes changed the CBD forever. Since then, for the full decade, he has amassed passionate and personal observations of the transformation and rebuild, publishing many photobooks and portfolios via www.placeintime.org, a multi-platform project facilitating and promoting documentary work about Christchurch and a cross-section of its people. Place … Continue reading →
DESIGN GENERATION: How Peter Haythornthwaite shaped New Zealand’s design-led enterprise Michael Smythe With an introduction and interview by Michael Barrett
This book tells the story of one of New Zealand’s most influential industrial designers. Spanning five decades, Design Generation documents Haythornthwaite’s career through childhood influences, education in Auckland and Illinois, work experience in California and New York, and teaching and consultant practice back in New Zealand. It chronicles his many roles as a design leader: as innovator of design, employer in private practices and his notable contribution to the wider field of design. Vivid case studies of Haythornthwaite’s work illustrate … Continue reading →
The publication An urban quest for chlorophyll aims to discuss projects that engage with the cultural mediation of nature in an urban context. Architects, designers and town planners all consider the role played by green spaces within the urban terrain, from parks to abstractions such as berms and planters. The design of public urban space always takes this into account. How do these injections of chlorophyll function? If they have no possibility of simulating the rural, why are we compelled to ‘drag the pot-plant into the office’ or … Continue reading →
Published on the occasion of the exhibition Holland Street, by Sarah Caylor and Ann Shelton Courtenay Place Park Light Boxes Wellington, New Zealand 15 August – 2 December 2013
Taking as its starting point two nineteenth-century events – London’s cholera outbreak of 1854 and Wellington’s typhoid epidemic of 1890-2 – Holland Street recalls a world where disease was thought to travel through miasma (noxious air) and bacteria were believed to be as real as “Hydras, and Gorgons, and Chimeras Dire”. Holland Street utilises differing visual approaches to map critical sites related to these two … Continue reading →
THINKING IT THROUGH Tony Watkins Haruhiko Sameshima
Thinking it through was originally published in Home and Building from 1988 to 1996 when Kirsty Robertson, then editor for “Home and Building” invited Tony Watkins, who had for many years been a contributor to the magazine, to begin a new column called simply, “Thinking it through”. She also invited Haruhiko Sameshima to contribute a photograph for each column. Haru had never met Tony. For each issue Tony sent an article to Haru and Haru replied with a photograph. Tony in turn responded to each photograph with another article in the … Continue reading →
The idea of making do with what’s available is a fitting analogy for Pauline Bern’s jewellery practice. Bern has always utilised locally sourced materials that are connected to her in some way and worked to transform them into something new. In this instance, a selection of plants from her Devonport garden provided the primary material for the pieces in Colonial Goose.
Colonial Goose harks back to the early pioneering tradition in New Zealand of making do with what’s on hand. Owing to a scarcity of geese, the traditional English Christmas fare of roast … Continue reading →
RIVER-ROAD Journeys Through Ecology David Cook – photographs Wiremu Puke – text Jonty Valentine – design
River/Road takes an intimate look at the environmental, cultural, historical and economic factors that shape the ecology of our immediate environment. The narrative explores regional ecology from a bicultural perspective. The authors trace a journey, following the parallel arteries of the Waikato River and River Road. The emphasis is on being ‘readers’ of the landscape. The authors bring a number of distinct voices to the project
Jonty Valentine the graphic designer, provokes and navigates the reader through a multi-layered account of … Continue reading →
