Tag Archives: publication

Delighted to have two finalists in New Zealand Post Book Awards

Te Papa Press, New Zealand’s unique museum publisher, are delighted to advise that two of its books are finalists in the prestigious annual New Zealand Post Book Awards.

The finalists, announced last week, were selected from 160 entries and are described by the judges as “diverse and exciting”.

Whatu Kākahu: Māori Cloaks edited by Awhina Tamarapa and New Zealand Film: An Illustrated History, edited by Diane Pivac, Frank Stark, Lawrence McDonald and published in association with The Film Archive, are both finalists in the Illustrated Non-fiction category of the awards.

According to the finalist announcement the judges were unanimous in their selection of  the titles and Te Papa Press publisher Claire Murdoch is thrilled that both books are being recognised in this way.

“Awards like this are a welcome acknowledgement of the great care and professional pride our team takes in creating books about Aotearoa’s art, culture and natural world. An immense amount of dedicated scholarship went into the writing and editing of both books, and because they’re also heavily illustrated, the efforts of the photography and design teams were similarly substantial. I’d like to extend congratulations and hearty thanks to all who worked on these beautiful books, and to all who work closely with Te Papa Press.”

The New Zealand Post Book Awards will be announced at an evening ceremony on Wednesday 1st August. Readers are invited to vote for their favourite through the People’s Choice Award here: www.nzpostbookawards.co.nz

Visitors to Te Papa will also be able to find elements from Whatu Kākahu: Māori Cloaks featuring in the exhibition Kahu Ora Living Cloaks which opens at the museum this week. Entry to this exhibition is free. 

Vivian Lynn talks about her work Guarden gates, 1982

Senior artist Vivian Lynn has for over sixty years been making critical and enquiring work. The recent selective survey I, HERE, NOW Vivian Lynn at the Adam Art Gallery Te Pātaka Toi, Victoria University of Wellington (25 October 2008-15 March 2009) curated by Christina Barton, offered a rich selection of over seventy works dating from 1950-2008.

A book, of the same title, has just been published and makes fascinating reading, with essays by Christina Barton and Anna Smith, and short texts on specific works by Ian Wedde, Brian Easton, Pamela Gerrish Nunn, Priscilla Pitts, Charlotte Huddleston, Anne Kirker, Sarah Treadwell and Guyon Neutze.

Guarden gates, a significant work from 1982, is part of Te Papa’s collection. It comprises seven wall mounted sculptural forms made from cyclone gates, human hair and ribbon, and was a key focal point of the Te Papa exhibition We are unsuitable for framing, curated by Charlotte Huddleston which overlapped with the Adam Art Gallery exhibition (28 December 2008-26 July 2009).

Guarden gates, 1982, Vivian Lynn (1931– ), New Zealand. Purchased 1993 with Elise Mourant Collection funds. Te Papa.

Guarden gates, 1982, Vivian Lynn (1931– ), New Zealand. Purchased 1993 with Elise Mourant Collection funds. Te Papa.

Each of the seven structures has its own title: Matrix; Daughter of the father; Sacrifice; Processual ground; Differentiation; Rebirth and Eyes of life, eyes of death. The combination of materials is evocative and visceral, and the formal arrangement of the suite of works heightens their arresting qualities.

As Christina Barton comments in her introductory essay ‘Entwined with hair and other substances, Guarden gates demonstrates Lynn’s treatment of materials as generators of meaning. Together and singly the seven gates establish a complex interplay of opposites (organic and manufactured, structural and ornamental, inside and outside) that engage and contest the politics associated with her chosen materials’ cultural coding and which set out a poetic narrative referencing Jungian concepts of the unconscious. Though not an illustration (Lynn only encountered the story after the work was completed), the installation can be read through the 5000-year-old legend of Inanna, a Sumerian fertility deity representing eros, who sets out on a journey to meet her sister Ereshkigal, queen of the underworld, and has to pass through seven gates, giving up her different powers at each to surrender herself to death, who is later rescued in a symbolic gesture that affirms the cycle of life.’[1]

During the exhibition at Te Papa Vivian Lynn spoke about Guarden gates, how the work evolved and the range of social, political and mythological associations it draws upon. You can see this footage here:

Heather Galbraith
Senior Curator Art


[1] Barton, Christina, I, HERE, NOW Vivian Lynn – an introduction, I, HERE, NOW Vivian Lynn, Adam Art Gallery Te Pātaka Toi, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, p.16-17.

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