Signposts - a blog about Te Ara the Encyclopedia of New Zealand

In case you were unaware, 2011 is the year of the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand. Alongside the rugby there will be a mass of other cultural events going on as part of the REAL New Zealand Festival.

Over the last few months, in the guise of one of my non-Te Ara roles, I have been working on a couple of proposals for photographic exhibitions to coincide with the cup. As I was working on the proposal, I became acutely aware that rugby was not a subject examined much by our art photographers.

Prince of Wales Park, Mt Cook, Wellington

Around 10 years ago Stephen Rowe and Brett Whincup produced the book The full 80 minutes and the touring exhibition ‘The New Rugby’. Beyond that, few other artists, art photographers and painters alike, have looked at the sport (or any other sport for that matter).

Over the years, photographers other than art photographers have focused on rugby though, most famously Peter Bush, and pretty much every local photojournalist, and masses of amateur and commercial photographers have also taken photos of rugby and rugby players from grass roots to internationals.

Recently, Pataka had an exhibition looking at sheep in New Zealand art. Again, sheep are a subject that has been well-covered by photojournalists in numerous books and magazine articles, but something that has been somewhat neglected by local artists – though a number of people have made works examining the meat works closures during the 1980s, most notably Robert Jahnke.

At Pataka there was a nice collection of paintings and sculpture with sheep as their subject, but the 10 or so photos, ranging from farmlands to science labs, were pretty much all that could be found from our art photographers, as Paul McNamara pointed out in a talk he gave during the show.

I do find it interesting that these two bastions of New Zealand culture have been largely neglected by our artists, and art photographers in particular, but maybe that in itself is a strong statement about New Zealand culture.

One aspect of our culture that hasn’t been so overlooked by our artists is war. In the lead up to Anzac Day I often find myself reflecting on the artists’ take on war. New Zealand has had a number of official war artists, most notably Peter McIntyre and, most recently, Matt Gauldie.

Bunnythorpe War Memorial, Bunnythorpe, Manawatū

A few years ago our 2011 Venice Biennale representative Michael Parakowhai produced some beautiful works responding to places in France and Flanders where the Pioneer Maori Battalion made a contribution in the First World War. Photographer Laurence Aberhart is widely known for, amongst other things, his beautiful images of memorials of war and other events – a subject he is still exploring. Michael Shepherd and Matt Pine have also explored war in their artworks.

I don’t think artists’ disregard of certain subjects is a purely New Zealand phenomena, but it does make me wonder if art does truly hold a mirror up to nature, as Shakespeare asserted, or if it just holds a mirror up to the nature of the artist.

When most people think of science in New Zealand they probably think biology and geology. Certainly it is difficult to escape our habitation in such a volatile locale, what with all our faultlines and geothermal activity. We are also renowned for our unique flora and fauna, and our groundbreaking conservation projects – both species survival and species eradication.

2011 marks the centenary of the publication of Ernest Lord Rutherford’s Nobel Prize-winning paper describing the discovery of the atomic nucleus. By coincidence, amongst other things, it is also the International Year of Chemistry.

We’re not exactly a nation known for our chemists, but beyond the natural environment, broadly speaking, chemistry is incredibly important to New Zealand as well. Just think where our horticultural and agricultural industries would be without fertilising and topdressing, not to mention the processing of these primary products into such essential things as wine, cheese, crackers, etc.

Equally, a number of New Zealander’s have been integral to some of the most significant chemistry discoveries of the last century. Our three Nobel Prize winners were all involved to some degree in chemistry, with two of them winning that particular Nobel Prize, and the other sharing one in medicine and physiology.

Though known as a physicist, Ernest Rutherford’s work on the structure of atoms (the building blocks of all chemicals) straddled both chemistry and physics, opening up new areas of study leading all the way to the Large Hadron Collider. Alongside his Nobel Prize, he is also commemorated with the synthetic chemical element Rutherfordium (Rf) and his portrait on our $100 bill.

Rutherford monument in Brightwater

Maurice Wilkins was a biophysicist, an expert in X-ray crystallography, but his most renowned work was the complex co-operation/competition with Rosalind Franklin, James Watson, and Francis Crick in deciphering the chemical makeup and structure of DNA, thereby pioneering the discipline of biochemistry.

Wilkins monument in Pongaroa

Our most recent Nobel Laureate, Alan MacDiarmid, was a plastics chemist. He was particularly interested in plastics which conducted electricity, principally sulfur nitride derivatives, inadvertently helping to create the field of nanotechnology.

Pleasingly, all three are celebrated at our universities with various buildings, memorials, and research institutions named in their honour. Another factor common amongst these men is that they all did their most important work overseas. Many others, though, have based themselves here, and among some of our lesser-known chemists are Theodor Rigg (fertilisers), James Maclaurin (food safety), Dave Lowe (greenhouse gases), Meto Leach (traditional medicines), Cornel de Ronde (recent re-discoverer of the Pink Terraces), and um … my dad (processes for production of electricity).

Over the summer I stayed with my mate in the Benneydale back country. One day, left to my own devices, I did a bit of tiki-touring. A few years ago my mate was based at Pureora, a few minutes east of Benneydale, so he was able to give me directions to a couple of places to go in the forest park. First stop was Pureora village itself – well, the half-dozen houses that now make up that community.

After the town I hit the dirt road in search for the ‘Centre of the North Island‘. A spot ‘discovered’ a few decades ago by a DSIR scientist who clearly didn’t have enough work to keep him busy. The plaque on the ‘monument’ (below) tells the story of how he worked it out.

The 'monument' at the 'centre' of the North Island

The plaque on the 'monument'

The ‘monument’ itself was rather disappointing, though probably in keeping with the method of discovery. Call me fussy, but I couldn’t help thinking that if you wish to find the centre of balance for any geological formation, you really should take into account the three-dimensionality of the real thing, and not assume that the landmass is equally distributed.

I was reminded of a family holiday years ago when we visited the ‘Centre of New Zealand‘ in/near Nelson with its far more grandiose monument. I remember Dad asked us how they came up with that being the centre. I threw him a few ideas, none of which were right. He never did tell us.

Nelson's 'centre' of New Zealand monument

Apparently the ‘real’ ‘Centre of New Zealand’ is in the Spooners Range near Tapawera (41 deg. 30 min S., 172 deg. 50 min E.), though this too was found via a gravity survey that took in Stewart Island, the North and South Islands, and the smaller inshore islands, but not the Chathams. The Nelson point was merely a somewhat arbitrary point for an 1870s survey project.

Besides gainfully occupying some surveyors or scientists for a few hours or days and being a nice bit of trivia, I’m not really sure what purpose these centres have. They do make for pleasant enough detours though, and on the way to the ‘Centre of the North Island’ you can do the much more pleasurable (and not terribly strenuous) walk to the summit of Mt Pureora, with its stunning views of the centre of the North Island.

Stunning views from the top of Mt Pureora (click to view panorama)

Sunday 8 August, marks the 95th anniversary of the capture of Chunuk Bair by New Zealand troops. While the victory was short-lived, it has been suggested by some that 8 August should be New Zealand’s war memorial day.

A quiet moment in the war – Andy's grandfather Jack Houghton is on the left

The other week I had the pleasure of spending a few days in Tauranga, though I wasn’t there entirely just for pleasure. I spent three-and-a-bit days in a windowless room at the Tauranga Heritage Collection tasked with re-photographing an old photo album.

During the First World War Kate Booth was a nurse based at the New Zealand military hospital in Cairo. During her time there she built up an album of photos, some presumably taken by her and some taken by other people, including her patients. The album is currently owned by Kate’s niece and is likely to stay in private hands for the foreseeable future. But the value of the album as a whole, and of specific photos, meant that some of our colleagues in the ministry’s History Group felt there should be a public record of the photo album.

Home sweet home

Consequently, I spent the best part of three days re-photographing the 900-odd photos. Bearing in mind that the photos are over 90 years old, many have stood the test of time well. Admittedly quite a few hadn’t, with some having faded to near-off-white. I didn’t really spend as much time looking at the photos as I thought I might have. I was more interested in making sure that all the camera and flash were working okay and making sure I was matching up the right file number with the right caption in a spreadsheet.

The photos are now with History Group and some will, no doubt, soon be finding their way onto NZHistory.net.nz, and other publications.

Hanging out, with guns

Coincidentally, a few years ago I got my hands on some of my grandfather’s negatives, also taken in and around Cairo during wartime – this time, the Second World War. I can’t recall ever speaking to Jack about his time in the service; I got the impression (most probably from Mum) that it wasn’t something he talked about. And sadly, I only got hold of the negatives after his death.

Jack Houghton, with sandbags

It was quite interesting going through his photos, not least because I had been to some of the same places he had visited decades earlier – Aleppo, Damascus, Cairo. There were other photos which I couldn’t place, and others from places I was unfamiliar with. While the quality of the negatives isn’t great, the real value in them for me is the little piece of our family history they tell.

The same is true, to a large extent, with the Kate Booth photos, but equally their vernacular nature makes them unofficial records of hugely important parts of our recent-ish history. Almost certainly there are hundreds of similar collections in drawers and cupboards around the country waiting to be rediscovered, and hopefully conserved for future generations.

A group of soldiers out for a ramble

(All photos are by, or of, Jack Houghton, taken in the Middle East between late 1941 and 1945)

The elusive North Island robin (click for full image)

I recently took some time off work to stay with a friend near Benneydale, 35 kilometres south-east of Te Kūiti. I was planning a few days of doing not very much, but my friend had other ideas.

Nic is currently working on Project Robin, a Massey University conservation project monitoring North Island robin populations in the area. With breeding season over and winter about to hit, the field work was more or less done for another year. However, there were a few jobs that needed doing before closing up shop for winter.

And it was some of those jobs that I was roped into doing. The bush Nic works in is fragments of largely native forest spread over numerous farms. On the first day we tidied up bait stations and rat trap stations in one fragment, removing the poison and securing the covers. The following two days we removed stations and traps from one fragment, and installed some in a nearby area of bush. It’s not exactly hard work, but it is very physical; methodically traipsing up and down hills with various bits of gear.

A trap (white) and bait (black) station in a forest fragment

The bush areas themselves are quite interesting. Some are open to sheep and cattle at various times of the year, and wild goats and pigs whenever they get in. The difference between those areas and bush that is completely closed off from the farm stock is dramatic – there is a near complete lack of undergrowth. But what really struck me was the fact that the robin are quite happy in the browsed areas, seemingly untroubled by the bigger beasts – farming and conservation side by side.

On the weekend, when Nic was back attempting a census count before the weather turned nasty, I made a brief trip up to the Maungatautari Ecological Island, a wonderfully accessible forest restoration project near Cambridge, with some easy walks through the beautiful bush.

There are a lot of smaller, less well-known programmes, like Project Robin, going on around the country all helping to maintain and enhance New Zealand’s unique flora and fauna.

And of course there are bigger programmes too, primarily Department of Conservation (DoC) projects. I have been lucky enough to spend time on Kapiti Island helping (in the loosest sense) with both the kōkako and hihi (stitchbird) programmes, and spending a couple of weeks near Ōmarama helping (in the very loosest sense) with the black stilt. And last year I also had the opportunity to travel to the sub-antarctic islands and document some of DoCs work down there with albatross and sea lions. There’s photos from this trip here: http://www.acpalmer.com/subant/; and some more information here: http://microphen.blogspot.com/search/label/Sub-Antarctica.

For more information about Project Robin, and other robin and tomtit reintroductions, visit: http://rsg-oceania.squarespace.com/nz-robin-tomtit/.