PUBLIC LECTURE: Indigenous Histories of Photography

A public lecture by Angela Wanhalla, University of Otago.

Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand, were a popular subject of the photographic trade in the colonial era. As in other colonial societies where indigenous peoples were captured by the camera, photographs of Maori were collected and traded, entering into the private collections, albums and scrapbooks of soldiers, colonial officials, scientists and travellers, some of which were lodged in the collections of British museums. Rather than focus on the history of racial science, photography and museums in the metropole, this presentation turns away from the imperial centre to examine the photographic collections of museums in the colonies.

Photographic scholars in New Zealand have studied Maori as the subject of the camera, concerned themselves with the trade in such photographs, looked at the operation of commercial enterprises in the colony, and sketched the biographies of pioneer photographers. Institutional photograph collections, however, have gained little critical attention. Images of Maori feature heavily in these collections, with ethnographic motives often claimed as the reason for their creation. But does the scholarly emphasis on ethnographic photography in New Zealand marginalise alternative interpretations of indigenous peoples and their relationship with photography? Drawing upon historic photographs, as well as the work of contemporary Maori artists and photographers, this talk surveys the Maori presence in institutional photographic collections in order to fashion a history of colonial photography through the everyday encounters of indigenous peoples with the medium.

Cost: free, but RSVP required. Visit http://www.ias.uwa.edu.au/lectures/wanhalla