This Blasted Heath
Caroline McQuarrie
PhotoForum
English
Softcover
Edition of 220
28 pages
150 x 228 mm
2024
ISSN 01110411
This Blasted Heath depicts small, overlooked sites in northern and western Te Waipounamu South Island, Aotearoa New Zealand. When Pakeha colonial settler gold miners spread across the area in the 1860s, they situated themselves in this new, wild and strange land by re-naming hills, rivers, forests and creeks. These sites are unusual in being named by ordinary individuals during the chaos of the gold rush rather than by officials. Little effort was made to learn and incorporate existing Maori names which were descriptive of the land and the surrounding area. Many of the settler names might have been meaningful to the individuals who chose them at the time;
(source: introduction text within book)
About the Artist
Born in Hastings, Christopher Matthews studied at the University of Canterbury’s School of Fine Arts in the late 1970s, became well known as a documentary photographer and moved to England in 1995. He is now a lecturer in photography at Colchester University.
(source: https://collection.sarjeant.org.nz/persons/12395/christopher-matthews)
About the Publisher
PhotoForum is a New Zealand non-profit organisation dedicated to the promotion of photography as a means of communication and expression. They maintain a book publication programme, and organise occasional exhibitions, workshops and lectures, and publish independent critical writing, essays, portfolios, news and archival material on their website.
photoforum-nz.org
(source: https://www.photoforum-nz.org/photoforum)
