Category Archives: War

Golden Enterprise:New Zealand Chinese Merchants 1860s-1970s

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Golden Enterprise:New Zealand Chinese Merchants 1860s-1970s
by Phoebe H. Li
Published by Chinese Poll Tax Heritage Trust.

Commissioned by the Chinese Poll Tax Heritage Trust, Golden Enterprise offers a compelling re-examination of New Zealand Chinese history from the 1860s to the 1970s, focusing on the pivotal role of Cantonese merchants.

These early entrepreneurs not only facilitated Chinese immigration but also shaped the identity of Chinese New Zealanders within the broader context of New Zealand’s shifting relationships with China, Britain, and the wider world. Drawing on extensive archival research in both Chinese and English sources, Phoebe H. Li illuminates the merchants’ transnational business and social networks, providing fresh perspectives on Chinese migration to the South Pacific.

This richly illustrated volume combines in-depth historical analysis with vivid human stories, complemented by a stunning collection of paintings and photographs. With its accessible style, Golden Enterprise appeals to both academic readers and those with a general interest in New Zealand and Chinese diaspora histories.

Phoebe H. Li holds a PhD from the University of Auckland and was a research fellow at Tsinghua University in Beijing. She is currently an independent historian. Her prior publications include A Virtual Chinatown: The Diasporic Mediasphere of Chinese Migrants in New Zealand (Brill, 2013), Recollections of a Distant Shore: New Zealand Chinese in Historical Images (co-authored with John B. Turner, Social Sciences Academic Press, 2017) and some journal articles and book chapters. She was the principal curator of the acclaimed photographic exhibition Being Chinese in Aotearoa, hosted by the Auckland War Memorial Museum, the Waitangi Treaty Ground Museum, and the New Zealand Portrait Gallery (2017-2020).

Designed by Rim Books, Golden Enterprise features full-colour illustrations, encased in a quarter cloth-bound hardcover, offering both a visual and intellectual feast.

Published by Chinese Poll Tax Heritage Trust
September 2024

RRP $75
Hardcover | 232 pages
240 x 290 x 20 mm
ISBN 978-0-473-69998-7

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in some smothering dreams

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in some smothering dreams
Camus Wyatt
with an essay by Deidra Sullivan

What can photographs say about the unimaginable? in some smothering dreams takes our gaze to the First World War, where official photographer Henry Armytage Sanders created the most extensive visual record of New Zealanders on the Western Front. But rather than being an archive of slaughter, Sanders’ photographs often depict the faces of men behind the lines and the landscapes left in the war’s wake.

Using details from the original glass plate negatives, Camus Wyatt reimagines these photographs as places of strange beauty, capturing both a profound quiet and a looming sense of dread. With an essay by Deidra Sullivan on the history of the Sanders collection and the possible meanings of their reimagining, in some smothering dreams is a moving contemplation of the pathways between image, archive, the lives of others, and the limits of our understanding.

“(Sanders’) photographs are deeply evocative of New Zealand’s involvement in this global conflict and of the experience of those who served. The significance of the collection is illustrated by its inclusion on UNESCO’s Memory of the World register. Public engagement with these photographs has always been strong, but by revisiting the original negatives and drawing attention to the quiet detail captured within them, this publication will present a reinterpretation that is sure to deepen both personal and collective connections with these images.”

—Natalie Marshall, former Curator of Photographs at the Alexander Turnbull Library

Camus Wyatt is an independent photographer and doctoral student in art history based in Wellington Te Whanganui-a-Tara. His practice often examines the connections between thought and place, perception and form. He is drawn to the possibilities of change and chance, unplanned moments and the materiality of analogue photography. He has had five previous solo exhibitions. His most recent work was Time is the longest distance, a public art installation for Wellington City Council of sixteen large-scale lightbox images exploring the relationship between photography, memory and place. 

Deidra Sullivan teaches on the Creative Technologies programmes at the Wellington Institute of Technology and has also taught at Massey University and Victoria University, tutoring in the Art History Departments. She has an enduring interest in photographic history and processes, and during 2020-2021 took time out from teaching to take the position of Curator, Photographic Archive, at the Alexander Turnbull Library. Her MFA considered the connections we make between historical knowledge, personal and cultural memory, and imagination when exploring collections of photographs. Her photographic practice engages with cameraless and lens-less photography.

June 2024

ISBN: 978-1-99-116523-7

Pages: 120pp, with offset duotone
Format: hardcover wrapped cloth, section sewn
Dimensions: 257 x 207 x 17mm
RRP $50.00

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Return to Monte Cassino

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Return to Monte Cassino: The 2nd NZEF War Veterans Remember Italy
Maree Frewen-Wilks, with an introduction by Peter Arnett and an essay by Matthew Wright

This book was conceived and produced by a Southland photojournalist Maree Frewyn-Wilks when she accompanied the New Zealand veterans attending the official functions in Italy in 2004 during the 60th Anniversary of the Battle of Monte Cassino. Her photographic essay features as a diary of the travel, visits to cemeteries, social and official events.

What makes this book a unique contribution to New Zealand war histories is the inclusion of veterans’ personal accounts, together with their thoughts and poems about Cassino and accompanied by portraits and profiles. These are complemented by previously unpublished photographs of Monte Cassino and surrounds, from their albums 1943–1945.

 

“These wonderful images depict the soldiers’ life with civilians, during battle and barren scenery spotlighting bomb craters, ammunition identifying tons of rubble. The images provide proof that life away from home was in fact – War.”

Maree Frewyn-Wilks

 

Weaved through the New Zealand veterans’ stories from 1944 and 2004 are:

 

Matthew Wright, one of New Zealand’s most published historians, has written a chapter on the battle of Monte Cassino, which provides a wider context of the New Zealand involvement, the battle and the bravery of all soldiers including the Germans and our own 28th Maori Battalion.

 

A German Paratrooper Bob Frettlohr has written his memories of the Battle of Monte Cassino and his thoughts about Cassino now. Hans Fredrick Meyer tells how the next generations see the Commemorations of the 60th Anniversary of the Battle of Monte Cassino.

 

The New Zealand burials in Cassino Commonwealth Cemetery are documented, with the list of the Soldier’s rank, army number, family, age, date of death and from what town in New Zealand he came. The members of the Southland contingent found fellow Southland soldiers who became casualties during the Battle of Cassino. The ode was recited, a poppy was placed and a Spirit of Southland Flag was placed on the headstone. Some of the graves visited are at the rear of the book.

 

The photographs in this book were compiled as Monte Cassino Exhibition, and Maree was the guest artist for the 70th Anniversary of the Battle of Monte Cassino in 2014. The exhibition was displayed at the Cassino Military Museum and was donated to the people of Cassino. Record of these events appears towards the rear of the book.

 

Hard-cover, section-sewn | 336 pages  300mm x 265mm landscape B&W reproduction
ISBN 978-0-473-36878-4
Self published: 2017

RRP $70  (NB. Over 2 kg and shipped from Invercargill)

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