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<\/a>Click to enlarge. Photo: Mark Beatty, Imaging Services, National Library<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>Keynote speaker: Professor Sherry Farrell Racette. Photo: Mark Beatty, Imaging Services, National Library<\/p><\/div>\n
The symposium kicked off with two keynotes. The first, Professor Sherry Farrell Racette<\/a> (Manitoba) on \u201cEnclosing some Snapshots\u201d: James P. Brady, Photography and Political Activism<\/em>, showed how photography was such an integral part of the work of this well-known M\u00e9tis activist. A self-taught community-based photographer, Brady used it record Metis life at a time when these communities were impoverished and its people lacked rights.<\/p>\n Keynote Speaker: Professor Jane Lydon. Photo: Mark Beatty, Imaging Services, National Library<\/p><\/div>\n Professor Jane Lydon<\/a> then gave Aboriginal Transformations of the Photographic Archive on <\/em>how Aboriginal communities are now using historic photographs. She traced the emotional and healing properties of photographs, and echoing Sherry Farrell Racette\u2019s keynote, pointed to the link between photography, rights and political activism. Drawing upon her Australian Research Council-funded project<\/a> that identifies and returns Aboriginal photographs held in European collections, Jane noted that while photographs carry the burden of the colonial past, Aboriginal families see them as ways to connect with family and place. To read more about that ARC project have a look at the website: Returning Photographs: Australian Aboriginal Photographs from European Collections<\/a><\/p>\n From left: Edith Amituanai, Nina Tonga, Brook Andrew, Paul McNamara, Yuki Kihara, and Jeanette Wikaira. Photo: Mark Beatty, Imaging Services, National Library<\/p><\/div>\n After morning tea, a panel of shorter talks ensued, first from three practitioners\/artists: Edith Amituanai <\/a>(Unitec), on the ethics of taking photographs in terms of her own work. Edith spoke about her community-based photography, recording Samoan people and their everyday lives in New Zealand and beyond. She gave us one of the most evocative sentences of the day when she described a photograph as an \u2018incomplete utterance of a sentence\u2019; Brook Andrew<\/a> of Wiradjuri (Monash)\u00a0 discussed the complexities of representation, and his own obsession with the colonial archives, which he uses in his artwork; and Yuki Kihara<\/a> gave a tour-de-force presentation on the intellectual work underpinning her recent \u201cA Study of a Samoan Savage\u201d, which was inspired by early \u201cscientific\u201d photographs of Samoans in the archive. These were followed by reflections from three people who deal with collections: Paul McNamara on how photographers had utilized the archives in various exhibitions at the McNamara Gallery<\/a>\u00a0 in Whanganui; Nina Tonga, Te Papa\u2019s Curator Pacific Cultures, on the photography of George Crummer<\/a>, a trader in the Cook Islands from 1890; and Jeanette Wikaira<\/a>, Kaituitui Ratonga M\u0101ori\u00a0 on how Kai Tahu families interact with the photographic archives of the Hocken Library.<\/p>\n Helen Brown (left) enjoying a break in proceedings with Lyndon Fraser (Canterbury University), and Lynette Shum, Oral History Advisor at the Turnbull. Photo: Mark Beatty, Imaging Services, National Library<\/p><\/div>\n The suite of papers reflected on community, place and family. Natalie Robertson<\/a> of AUT was unable to be at the symposium, but her Siting Mauri through Living Film and Photography<\/em> using material relating to Ng\u0101ti Porou and the Waiapu River was wonderfully and elegantly presented for her by AUT doctoral candidate and photographer Ngahuia Harrison. Helen Brown<\/a> of Ngai Tahu Archives presented on Wiremu Teira and his M\u0101ori Friends <\/em>where she discussed the P\u0101keh\u0101 writer and photographer William A. Taylor and his relationships with Ng\u0101i Tahu communities.<\/p>\n Karen Hughes & Aunty Ellen Trevorrow. Photo: Mark Beatty, Imaging Services, National Library<\/p><\/div>\n New Zealanders are probably unaware that Aboriginal families, not allowed to live alongside white Australians were relegated to \u201cfringe camps\u201d on the outskirts of outback towns. Karen Hughes<\/a> (Swinburne University) and renowned Ngarrindjeri weaver Aunty Ellen Trevorrow<\/a> (Camp Coorong Race Relations Cultural Education Centre) showed life in Ngarrindgeri camps through the intimate and familial portraits made by Aboriginal women photographers.<\/p>\n Chanel Clarke. Photo: Mark Beatty, Imaging Services, National Library<\/p><\/div>\n Chanel Clarke<\/a>, M\u0101ori Curator, Auckland Museum, rounded off the after-lunch session with Dressing the Part: Queen Victoria\u2019s M\u0101ori Subjects, <\/em>on the intersections of dress, photography and colonialism during a visit of M\u0101ori to England in the early 1860s. The symposium was lucky to have three \u201ckeynote listeners” who all gave their impressions and reflections on the earlier sessions: Damon Salesa<\/a> (Auckland), Jo Smith<\/a> (Victoria), and Tina Makereti<\/a> (novelist, Curator M\u0101ori, Museums Wellington). All three touched upon several important themes that united all the presentations: the affective power of photography, the ethics of photography, the rich and varied methodologies being deployed, and the ongoing power of colonial images in the present day.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>