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Showing posts from November, 2023

Ngako: The Collections Podcast

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Ngako: The Collections Talk is a documentary film and podcast series showcasing taonga in Auckland Libraries’ heritage and research collections.  Explore the whole series in our current exhibition , on until 2 March 2024 at Tāmaki Pātaka Kōrero, the Central City Library. This audio playlist contains all the episodes from Ngako: The Collections Podcast, where we explore items and stories from Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections. Wanderlust - the war years In this episode we find meaning and history in the Auckland Tramping Club’s newsletter Wanderlust.  Archivist Sharon Smith shares insights gleaned from reading the Wanderlust magazine in the period of publication during the Second World War.  We are also joined by current Auckland Tramping Club members, Ian, Anna and Dennis, on the Club’s programme of tramps and their preparation for the upcoming Club centenary celebrations. Listen to the track here . Ava, kava, kawa In this episode we explore the world of ava through a printed

Artist files: rare and rich glimpses into Aotearoa's art history.

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Image: Angela Morton Room artist files. Writer Peter Shaw has called artist files an essential part of our sense of history. "What were the things that reviewers were looking for at a particular time? What was the context in which the works were produced? These are endlessly fascinating questions, and unless you have artist files carefully collected and organized  by someone you lose all of that."* Over 700 files for individual Aotearoa artists are held in Takapuna’s Angela Morton Room Te Pātaka Toi Art Library. These can include exhibition catalogues, small printed artworks, posters, CV’s, reviews and interviews. The bulk of the material was collected from 1980 to 2010 and provides important documentation about well-established and lesser-known artists.  Shaw used our artist file for Pauline Thompson when curating the major retrospective of her work, Combined Cosmologies , held at the Pah Homestead. He said: "If the files weren’t there my picture of her work, her word