News from Madrid that Te Ahi Kā - The Fires of Occupation has been selected to be included in an exhibition at the Spanish National Library as part of PHotoEspaña and 2019 Best Photography Book of the Year Award. Copies can be purchased at Dewi Lewis Publishing here https://www.dewilewis.com/…/te-ahi-ka-the-fires-of-occupati… #teahikā #photobook
Excellent review of Te Ahi Kā on PhotoBook Journal today by Wayne Swanson. Thanks to Editor Douglas Stockdale for commissioning it.
Copies can be purchased worldwide through Dewi Lewis. For New Zealand, Australia and South Pacific visit Oratia Books. In Jersey books are available at CCA Galleries International and Société Jersiaise. All Special or Collectors Editions contact me directly. #teahikā #photobook
My new exhibition of Jersey’s native speakers will be showing at CCA Galleries International 23 May to 10 June. Please come along to some of the following events.
Private View with drinks reception 5:30-7:30pm 23 May
Coffee drop-in and pop-up studio portrait session 10:30-12:30 23 May
Gallery Talk – In conversation with Martin Toft 13:10-13:50pm 24 May
A preview of Becque à Barbe was showing at La Fête du Jèrriais from 2-5 May hosted at Jersey Museum / Jersey Heritage.
Join us today Photo London for book signings at Dewi Lewis Publishing in the East Wing of Somerset House. My book Te Ahi Kā is available with a choice of two covers, Green/Fern/ Female and Orange/ Flames/ Male. A set of Special Editions and Collectors Éditions in handmade clam boxes and archival C-prints are for sale too! #teahikā#photobook
Recently I spoke with Will Matsuda at Aperture Foundation. You can read the interview here on their blog published to coincide with the latest issue of Aperture Magazine, “Earth”. Thanks to Managing Editor Brendan Embser for commissioning the piece.
'Who can tell the story of an indigenous community? In 1996, photographer Martin Toft traveled to New Zealand and spent six months living with the Māori, participating in an illegal occupation of Mangapapapa, an ancestral land inside Whanganui National Park. It was during this time spent documenting their lives that Toft formed a deep connection with the land and community—even being given a Māori name, Pouma Pokai-Whenua. Twenty years later, Toft returned to New Zealand to rekindle the the spiritual kinship he had experienced and continue his project. But, as photographers and critics reckon with the medium’s colonial, often racist history when it comes to representing non-Western people, how do photographers reckon with issues of representation and power?'
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In a conversation between Will Matsuda and Martin Toft they discuss making his new book, Te Ahi Kā, against the backdrop of decolonization, climate change, and Māori spiritualism. https://aperture.org/blog/martin-toft-will-matsuda/
Copies can still be purchased through Dewi Lewis. For New Zealand, Australia and South Pacific visit Oratia Books. In the Americas go to Grenade in a Jar Books. All Special or Collectors Editions contact me directly.
Thanks to Curator, Maela Ohana for an extensive feature of Te Ahi Kā in Archive Collective. The book consists of 89 colour and b&w photographs including rare images held in 19th and 20th century collections in New Zealand, such as portraits made by Alfred Burton’s Maori at Home (1885) and James Ingram McDonald, Dominion Whanganui River Expedition (1921.)
Research in New Zealand archives was an important element of the development of the book’s narrative and structure as well as allowing images of ancestors from national collections to be seen by the descendants of those featured in 19th and 20th century portraits. An important aspiration of the book is the reconnection of people to their tribal taonga (treasures), and in its broadest sense assist in wider reclamation of Māori knowledge, language, and customs.
Consultation to use the images was sought from living members of whanau (family) and permission granted according to Taonga Māori policies held in New Zealand museums that acknowledges the kaitiaki (guardianship) and copyright of any Māori cultural treasures - including photographs belonging to iwi (tribes).
Seven hidden chapters of text appear inside fold-outs that include conversations with tribal elders in relation to Māori cosmology and provide context about the return to their ancestral homeland, Mangapapapa deep inside the Whanganui River.
Copies can be purchased through the Dewi Lewis website. For New Zealand, Australia and South Pacific visit Oratia Books. In the Americas go to Grenade in a Jar Books. All Special or Collectors Editions contact me here or through my website.
My ongoing project, The Seaflower Venture is featured today on PHmuseum. The project emerged from research into the origins of Jersey’s banking history undertaken as part of Masterplan - a parallel project focusing on the story of the island’s finance industry. With Jersey operating as an entreprôt; the island’s merchant trade of global commodities conducted across multiple outposts can be seen as a blueprint for a future offshore financial services industry facilitating international flow of capitol from other jurisdictions.
Within the context of Brexit and uncertainty of future trade relations I'm working on ambitious plans combining both projects into a multi-media installation in multiple locations in 2022. Entrepôt will explore through the prism of colonial and family history Jersey’s original wealth generated by the proceeds from the North Atlantic fisheries in the 18th and 19th centuries and how its merchant networks in the West Indies, South America and Mediterranean lay the foundation for the island's economic growth and development in the 20th and 21st centuries as an International Finance Centre. #theseaflowerventure #masterplan #entrepot
Since the end of last year I have been working with ZEITmagazin on an extensive feature about my new book Te Ahi Kā. Published today as a 10 page spread here are a few pages. Many thanks to Milena Carstens, Director of Photography and Tereza Mundilová for an excellent interview asking some critical questions about the nature of my collaboration with Māori, their spiritual world and relationship with photography.
To learn more you can read ZEITmagazin online here
Or purchase a copy of the book available here from Dewi Lewis Publishing.
For New Zealand, Australia and South Pacific visit Oratia Books.
