What Looks Back
It is important, I think, to lean into the fact that this exhibition requires a content warning. That is to say that photographs of memorials dedicated to the ‘heroes’ of colonisation, and its genocidal acts, are contained within. The exhibition A Vocabulary lays bare words, memories and names of those whose actions are still raw on the skin of our whenua, sharp on the tongues of lost language and continue to rip through the lives of tangata whenua.
From 5 December 2020 to 14 February 2021 Bruce Connew’s photographs held a prominent space at Te Uru Waitākere Contemporary Gallery. was both photographic show and book (of the same name) by Bruce Connew (Vapour Momenta Books, 2021). Designed by Catherine Griffiths, this publication houses a commissioned piece of writing titled ‘He Mōteatea and Essay’ by Dr Rangihīroa Panoho. In the final weekend of the exhibition, Connew, Panoho and Griffiths spoke at an artist talk hosted in Te Uru
