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 space and time.
Wiremu Puke launches his story-telling journey from the slopes of Taupiri where he surveys the landscape and makes his way upriver through Ngaruawahia and on to the city of Hamilton. He writes about the creatures and people who inhabit the space; wildlife, Tainui history, colonial settlement, contemporary dilemmas and imagined futures.
David Cook takes a photographic journey from his hometown of Hamilton, through suburbia, industrial zones, wild spaces, farms and on to Ngaruawahia, under the gaze of Taupiri. His images explore signs of the ever changing ecology of these spaces.
Readership: This book will be engaging and readable for a broad audience (high school age and older) – it is not aimed primarily at an elitist academic audience, although it will have potential for academic review and scrutiny. Potential readers are people interested in history, ecology, photography, regional identity. The book will be sold within regional book shops, online, and in some national bookshops that specialise in art books, photography books and environmental books.
David Cook is a documentary photographer and research leader for the School of Media Arts. His research interests involve the investigation of narrative in documentary photography, narrative and ecology. His most recent publication is Lake of Coal: the disappearance of a mining township (2006).
Wiremu Puke (Ngati Wairere, Ngati Koura and Ngati Whawhaakia) is an artist, writer, historian, consultant and former museum curator. He has been commissioned on district and regional council projects, developing interpretative historical accounts for cultural sites. Wiremu is also a carver – his most recent project is Te Parapara Maori Garden in the Hamilton Gardens. He is also at the forefront of a project which will see the planting of kowhai along the banks of the Waikato River in Hamilton City.
Jonty Valentine lives in Auckland where he works as a graphic designer and senior lecturer at AUT. He received an MFA in graphic design from Yale University in 2002, and a BFA from the University of Canterbury in 1993. He is co-editor of the graphic design journal The National Grid. Jonty has designed numerous print publications, including The Buzzing Confusion of Things, Aotearoa Digital Arts Reader and Lake of Coal: the disappearance of a mining township.
RIM BOOKS
ISBN 978-0-473-19699-8
2011
90p, 60 colour photographs, 240x170mm
6000 word text and map of the region
Last copies NZ $80.00 inc.GST
For all orders and requests info@rimbooks.com