The exhibition Scenes in Maoriland draws on historic New Zealand postcards [produced at the beginning of the 20^th century featuring scenes throughout the country] reconfigured with a contemporary interpretation and presented as editioned photographs.

The exhibition Scenes in Maoriland draws on historic New Zealand postcards [produced at the beginning of the 20^th century featuring scenes throughout the country] reconfigured with a contemporary interpretation and presented as editioned photographs.

Accompanying and extending the 'reach' of this exhibition is a set of standard postcards based on these photographs.

The postcards will be available at:

Parsons Books [Auckland], Hawkes Bay Museum & Art Gallery, Napier,  Pataka Porirua, Unity Books & Iko Iko Wellington, The Suter Nelson, Christchurch Art Gallery shop, Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui, Kura Wellington & Auckland.

Postcard History

‘Maoriland’ was a name given to New Zealand from the late 19th century through to the early part of the 20th century. At this time there was a worldwide postcard boom lasting from 1903 until the beginning of World War 1. The postcard boom was inspired by the introduction of cheap postage and technological advances allowing mass production. Scenic images of New Zealand appeared on mass produced postcards both printed in New Zealand and in Europe, in particular Germany. The advantages with having postcards printed in Germany were their advanced printing techniques coupled with a cheap labour force. This helped keep their printing industry extremely competitive.

Greetings in Maoriland, Welcome to Maoriland, Scenes in Maoriland and other similar titles were bestowed on elaborately decorated cards to be sent throughout New Zealand and around the world. Although technological advances had been made by the end of the 19th century, a considerable number of landscape photographs supplied for postcard production were made using large format cameras. Photographers such as the Burton Brothers and James Bragge had specially built horse drawn darkrooms. Camera size ranged from 4x5 inches up to 11x14inches.  At the peak of postcard production in 1909 more than 14 million postcards were posted in New Zealand with almost no photographs sold in that time apart from on the postcards.

References

Knight, H. (1971). Photography in New Zealand. A social and technical history. Dunedin: John McIndoe

Main, B & Jackson, A. (2006). Wish you were here. The story of New Zealand postcards. Wellington: New Zealand Postcard Society.

Wellington City Library. (2009). Heritage: The postcard collection. Retrieved 20 August 2009 from http://www.wcl.govt.nz/easyfind/