The National Basement
The National Basement
Emil McAvoy
Old Government House
University of Auckland
27 July – 22 September 2020
Opening celebration 5-7pm Wednesday 5 August
The exhibition is staged across the foyer and member’s lounge of Old Government House at the University of Auckland’s city campus. These rooms on the ground floor are for staff, PhD students and visitors to eat, drink and converse. They are open to the public 8am – 7pm Monday – Friday, and there is also a cafe onsite.
AAQT6401-A51176, published with permission, Archives New Zealand, The Department of Internal Affairs Te Tari Taiwhenua.
The National Basement is a curated selection of unique photographs drawn from Archives New Zealand’s National Publicity Studios collection which were never intended to be made public. The images are internal documentation of promotional displays produced by the National Publicity Studios which contain official government commissioned photography, painting, illustration, typography and design. These displays present an idealised picture of the nation deployed in the promotion of tourism, trade and positive public relations. The displays have since been lost or destroyed, and these unusual and previously unpublished photographs remain the only trace of their existence. Echoing this situation, once ubiquitous NPS images are now largely invisible. Further, with remarkably little information remaining on the NPS, and the public lives of the images it produced, one might also see these archives as ‘found photographs’ which pose more questions than they answer.
This exhibition is an outcome of the Archives New Zealand 50th Anniversary Scholarship and further developed by a University of Auckland Postgraduate Summer Research Scholarship. The artist acknowledges the support of Archives New Zealand, University of Auckland, City Gallery Wellington, Whitecliffe College of Arts & Design, and all the individuals who have contributed to its realisation.