For more than three decades, Fiona Pardington (b. 1961, Kāi Tahu, Kāti Māmoe, Ngāti Kahungunu, Clan Cameron of Erracht) has used photography to explore the relationships between people, objects and images, and the histories through which they are encountered. Her practice examines museum and archival collections, and interrogates the politics and dynamics of power that accompany viewership in those contexts. This publication accompanies To See a Face, an exhibition bringing together works emerging from these histories of classification, collection and recording. Pardington’s monumental photographs of huia and heitiki sit alongside images connected to erotic photography, as well as medical and scientific histories. Experienced together, these works offer an opportunity to consider our own engagement with subjects that have been collected, photographed, studied, classified and otherwise consigned to a position of passive subjection or voyeurism.

Made possible with the support of the STARKWHITE and designed by hi–low studio, this accompanying catalogue assembles the exhibited photographs and is furnished with insightful new and existing texts on selected series by writers Kirsty Baker, Tyson Campbell, Harry Rickit and Hōhua Thompson, in addition to an introduction by curator Anja Lückenkemper. 

Limited edition of 250 copies.

Editors: AD Schierning, Anja Lückenkemper
Copy Editor: Marie Shannon
Design: high–low studio
ISBN: 978-0-473-81490-8 
Pages: 80
Publisher: Te Uru Contemporary Gallery
Dimensions: 192 x 256 x 6mm