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Tamatea—Dusky Sound 1995 - Reviewed

Tamatea—Dusky Sound 1995

Mark Adams, Darren Glass, Ian Macdonald, Haru Sameshima

Two Rooms
Auckland

9 June -15 July 2023

Reviewed by John Hurrell for EyeContact, 24 June, 2023

Installation view, photo by Sam Hartnett.

Four talented artists of considerable repute, each with their own special way of utilising a camera, in this Two Rooms show, comment on the significant historic site of early European/Māori contact that they visited together: Dusky Sound (Tamatea) in Fiordland. Or perhaps, also commenting on the history of photography itself, and occasionally, even the history of painting. Some of these photographers have visited this site several times.

Mark Adams, 16.5.1995. Views from Astronomer’s Point, Tamatea Dusky Sound. After Russell Duncan. 2017; 25.5.1995. The Observatory. Astronomer’s Point. Totara stumps and regenerating forest. Tamatea-Dusky Sound. After Russell Duncan. 2017. Installation Photo by Sam Hartnett

Mark Adams‘ contributions mostly consist of rhythmical panoramas of jutting angular islands and small receding inlets made by butting three images together. Apparently some of the other shots of dense bush reveal the remains of stumps from chopped off trunks used by William Wales (an astronomer who came with Cook) to build a small temporary observatory to enable tracking the transit of Venus.


Continue reading the full review at EyeContact.


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