TENNZ touring exhibition brief

Exhibition Title/subtitle Working Life: Photography by Peter Quinn

Current status Available

Description This exhibition surveys the documentary photography of Peter Quinn through the lens of New Zealand’s working life. Quinn has been capturing images of New Zealanders at work over the length of the country for the past thirty years. Over this time, major shifts in what work looks like in New Zealand can be seen. Work is a part of our collective and individual identities, we relate to others through the jobs they and we do. Work, of all kinds, consumes a major part of our daily lives. Through our labours, together we are shaping New Zealand. Through the work of Peter Quinn, we see the undulating

shape of our nation taking form. The exhibition will comprise a rich selection of photographic prints depicting New Zealanders of different ethnicities, ages, abilities, genders and economic backgrounds, in their working environments. It will be staged at the New Zealand Portrait Gallery Te Pūkenga Whakaata in late 2019. A series of talks and other events can be scheduled throughout the exhibition to explore different perspectives, from those of the people depicted to the views of the artist and other experts. The exhibition will be widely publicised; the stories behind each of the images provide multiple interesting narratives for

media coverage.

Dates Opened at Portrait Gallery June – September 2019

Other Venues TBC

Size 10-40 running metres, the exhibition is scale-able to most spaces

Cost $500 + GST + one way freight cost

Content #5 large Peter Quinn prints

#35 small Peter Quinn prints

#5 Section panels with satistics on work from Stats NZ

Size for Freighting Available on request

Merchandise Peter Quinn Publications

Availability Available from October 2019

Number of objects Approx. 40 prints

Target audience Everyone. Work is a part of our collective and individual identities, we relate to others through the jobs they and we do. Diverse ethnicities, ages, abilities, genders, economic backgrounds and industries are represented in the photographs. The strong social history component to this exhibition and the data from Stats NZ make it suitable for many types of museums and galleries. The documentary style of photography is appealing and accessible.

Special notes The curator or a member of the NZPG would be happy to come to an opening if time and location allowed.

Touring Institution New Zealand Portrait Gallery

Other parties

Contact Talei Langley

Title Registrar/Admin

Phone 04 472 8874 or 021 885 782

Email Admin@nzportraitgallery.org.nz

Images – Working Life: Photos by Peter Quinn

Section themes: What are we doing for work – eg different industries and occupations; proportions, changes, new technologies and new industries like tourism How much are we earning – pay inequality, gender pay gap, volunteer work Who is working – migrants, workers with disabilities, aging population/changing retirement age Why are we working – job satisfaction, part of identity, feelings of worth and contribution and community Where are we working – regional and locations of work Labels also include info on work in New Zealand from Stats NZ

# Title Date

1. The Speaker, Jonathan Hunt, Clerk of The House, David McGee, and Serjeant-at-Arms, Brent Smith, with the ceremonial mace. Parliament. Wellington

2002

2. Members of Parliament gather in the debating chamber following the swearing in ceremony at the State Opening Day. Wellington

2002

3. Hansard staff, Shirley Copeland. Parliament. Wellington..

2002

4. Cable logging “skiddy” crew members, Shane Learmond (centre) and Mike Derrett prune and process logs on a “dump” site in the Raukumara Range, East Cape.

2002

5. Ngai Tuhoe dairy farmer, Tom Brown. Waimana. Eastern Bay of Plenty.

2012

6. Onkar Singh holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from India. Since arriving in New Zealand he has driven taxis in South Auckland. Great South Road..

2002

7. Automotive technicians at Continental Cars on Great South Road. Newmarket, Auckland. Second hand Ferrari’s were priced at a quarter of a million dollars and upwards and New Zealand, it turns out, is second only to Switzerland in per capita Ferrari ownership at the time this image was made

2002

8. Tauwhenua Trust bee-keeper, Nick Mitai, attends to hives. Ruatahuna. Te Urewera.

2012

9. A Transit NZ road construction worker surveys progress on a treacherous section of road works between Candy’s Bend and Starvation Point. Arthur’s Pass. South Island.

2000

10. Seasonal worker, Niral Devi from Punjab, works in the Bombay packhouse at Master & Sons, who have been in the onion business for more than 60 years. Great South Road, Auckland.

2002

11. Dictionary of New Zealand Biography assistant editor, Nancy Swarbrick, fact checks some 15,000 files to ensure accuracy before publication. Wellington.

1998

12. Blood-soaked Base Westrupp, after a day docking lambs using the cruder ‘cut-and-bite’ method for collecting ‘mountain oysters’. Kiteroa Station, East Cape.

1994

13. The Govind family in their Otahuhu fruit & vege shop, The Big Apple. Great South Road, Auckland. Over the decades he’s been in the family business, Irvin Govind has seen a change in his customers, and their tastes. Orginally catering to European and a few Maori, when he was a boy, Otahuhu transformed into a hub of Pacific Islanders and Asians settling there from Cambodia, Malaysia and elsewhere. These days the shop stocks Fijian cassava; Tongan coconuts; pineapples from the Philippinese, Malaysian cream crackers; Samoan plantains, Chinese salt and bags of pia – “powdered tapioca”.

2001

14. Charlie Heberley, one of the last whalers in New Zealand waters, ended that career in 1964 when the Perano Whaling Station closed. Charlie has now become a staunch whale conservationist and records the migrating humpback population through Cook Strait for the DoC. Arapawa Island, Marlborough Sounds.

2011

15. Midwife, Jenny Johnston, does a final weigh-in at six weeks in the harbour-side home of Elizabeth Church and Peter Kopp, the baby’s parents. Whitianga. Each year, Jenny travelled over 40,000 kilometres around the torturous roads of the Coromandel Peninsula in the service of its youngest citizens in her role as a domicillary midwife.

1996

16. Double ordination of Catholic priests, Paul Byers and Francis Bird, at St Mary’s church. Whanganui. Catholicism first arrived on New Zealand’s shores in 1838 when French Marist Bishop Jean Baptiste Francois Pompallier sailed into the Hokianga Harbour and began spreading the word, firstly amoung Maori converts. With the arrival of Irish immigrants in the 1860s, the church took a divergent path.

2000

17. Social worker, Sister Catherine Hannan, provides a listening ear at the Wellington soup kitchen run by the Sisters of Compassion for 100 years. Lacking funds, the facilities closed soon after. Wellington Central.

2000

18. After losing his best friend to cancer, Rex Innis of Hikutaia has let the Cancer Society pick daffodils from his plot for their annual appeal each spring. Hauraki Plains.

1998

19. A seasonal orchard worker stacks Pacific Beauty variety of apples for sale at a roadside stall. Motueka. Tasman Bay.

2010

20. A deckhand aboard the long-liner, Koru, removes the fins and tails of school shark for export to Asia, while the trunks will be sold as fish & chips in Australia. Tasman Sea. Off the West Coast near Bayleys Beach, Dargaville.

1997

21. Richard Van Nieuwkoop of Wanaka Paragliding Ltd offers tandem flights to adventure tourists from off the road leading to Treble Cone ski field. Wanaka. South Island.

1991

22. Paralympian, Kevin Aleksich, had his cancerous left leg amputated just after his 21st birthday in 1987. It hasn’t stopped him representing New Zealand in competitive downhill skiing competitions. Queenstown.

1998

23. Pastoral Co-ordinator, Sister Catherine O’Neill, of the Sisters of Mercy order, attends to residents at the Atawhai Assisi Home For The Elderly. The Catholic religious order established the Aged-care Home in 1971 in Hamilton, following the principles of the founder, Sister Catherine McAuley, who emigrated to New Zealand in 1850 heeding a call from Maori wahine toa asking for a ministry to teach and help the sick. When the State began divesting itself of geriatric hospital services, a hospital was also established on the site in 1973.

2000

24. Ron “Sparrow” Sparks (left) and Mark Daily at the end of a shift at the Sullivan underground coal mine at Denniston on the South Island West Coast.

1994

25. Auckland Hospital neurosurgeon, Mr Edward Mee, performs a four hour long operation on a patient to remove a brain tumour.

1998

26. On Opiki Station, shearers Robin Chaffey and Rob McKenzie take a break to oil their handpieces. Te Puia Springs. Highway 35, East Cape.

1995

27. Tickets, please,” asks guard (“clippie,” in rail lingo) Peter Taera as the 5.24 pm commuter train leaves the city bound for Porirua. Wellington trains carried over 8 million passengers in the last year (1996), five times the number who travel by rail in Auckland

1996

28. Ngati Haka Patuheuheu kapa haka performers depart the biennial Tūhoe Ahurei festival. Ruatoki.

2013

29. Stock-man, Ron Brown and his side-kick Luke Abbott herding cattle along Highway 35. Opape, East Cape.

1995

30. Otira volunteer fire crew use hand-me-down gear from other brigades, and their engine pictured here –a 1954 Dennis– has now gone to the Hokitika Museum. Otira, West Coast.

2001

31. “Old Jack” from Greymouth, doing the dishes at his mate “Pluto’s” white-baiting crib on the Moeraki, or “Blue”, River. South Westland.

1993

32. Mauga Tuia’s Otahuhu barbershop. Great South Road. Auckland. The barber had recently migrated from his native Samoa in 2000.

2002

33. Local farmer worker at Ihungia Station, inland from Te Puia Springs. East Cape. High country sheep and cattle stations around the East Coast were first established once local iwi allowed the land to be settled in the 1800s with long term leases. Wharfs and adjacent freezing works were established at Tologa, Tokomaru and Hicks Bays that provided employment in those communities through to the 1950s before the road opened allowing livestock to be transported out of the district and those jobs went with them.

1994

34. Greymouth mines rescue ‘proto-team’ Phil Chandler,Wayne Stewart, Russell Smith and Doug Burt during a training drill in a disuded bath-house at Runanga, West Coast. A levy on coal funds the Mines Rescue service in New Zealand.

1994

35. Norman Num (centre right), the owner of Diamond Chinese Takeaways, directs staff (he brought to New Zealand from remote rural Cantonese villages) on a busy Friday night in his family owned business, operating in Greenlane for 29 years when this image was made. Corner of Market Road and the Great South Road. Auckland.

2002

36. Auckland City Council worker, Makoni Tonga, has spent 15 years cleaning the streets since moving to New Zealand from Tonga. Karangahape Road. Auckland..

2013

37. At the East St corner, sex worker Kirra Lee (may not be real name) begins a Saturday night shift. Karangahape Road. Auckland..

2013

38. Divine Coffee Roasters barista, Dana Morgan, in her mobile coffee cart that has held the same position in Montgomery Square at the Saturday market for 8 years. Nelson.

2011

39. Dame Kiri Te Kanawa performs to an audience of 9,000 in the natural amphitheatre of the Bowl of Brooklands. New Plymouth.

1999

40. A factory process worker inspects butter-making production at the Kiwi Co-op Dairy plant in Hawera, shortly before the factory’s amalgamation into Fonterra. The South Taranaki factory was the largest one-site multi-product plant in the world at the time this picture was made.

2000