Arts commentator Mark Amery discusses the creative employment of New Zealand's photographic heritage, with a focus on the recently published book Young Country by poet Kerry Hines published by AUP, which is also currently the subject of an exhibition at public gallery Mahara in Waikanae.
The book brings together the remarkable images of New Zealand from the 1890s of amateur photographer William Williams, capturing the artist's laddish social scene, both theatrically and intimately, and a landscape changing dramatically - strewn with fallen trees and burnt bush.
Mark Amery also asks how well our rich photographic heritage represented publicly, and some innovative ways artists are bringing the past into the present.
