Tony Fomison

Making Ends Meet

Passionate, witty, and erudite, these essays by a radical curator describe how museums approach their sometimes conflicting missions to sponsor scholarship, generate popular appeal, and claim social significance. This analysis includes discussions of art and ethnology, the failure of late-Modernist art history, the construction of official culture, the intellectual history of European exploration in the Pacific, problems with cultural studies of the Pakeha Maori, and the conservation of archives and narratives.

Parihaka

Parihaka: The Art of Passive Resistance commemorates and explores one of the major historical events in the history of Aotearoa New Zealand - the invasion of Parihaka, Taranaki, by Pakeha soldiers in 1881. It considers the events leading up to the invasion and the immense strength and spirit of the Parihaka community which continues today. Over one hundred and twenty years of art, poetry and waiata were brought together for the exhibition, held at City Gallery, Wellington during the summer of 2000 and 2001. This book includes existing artworks depicting the story of Parihaka and its leaders, Te Whiti o Rongomai and Tohu Kakahi, plus new pieces commissioned from leading Maori and Pakeha artists, as well as historical and contemporary photographs. Texts include major new essays on the history, art and contemporary significance of Parihaka, plus new poems by leading Maori and Pakeha writers.

Tony Fomison