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July 31, 2009
I've become a paid-up member of Photoforum New Zealand --they have an excellent blog by the way. Consequently, I'm now receiving printed material in the mail.
The latest is a book entitled Bold Centuries by Haruhiko Sameshima, which arrived just after I'd got back from Broken Hill. The book is an eye opener and a cultural shock. This is sophisticated work as it links photographic practice and photographic criticism.
Sameshima is a Japanese living in New Zealand. He is not featured on Photoforum's members page, even though he is a central figure in contemporary New Zealand photography.
Haruhiko Sameshima, Kauri Kingdom, date unknown, silver gelatin print
Sameshima worked in a small Dunedin photographic studio learning the craft before attending Otago Polytechnic Art School, then completing aBFA and MFA at Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland in 1995. He is currently teaching as half- time lecturer at Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland and maintains a studio practice in Karangahape Road.
Bold Centuries is a broad overview of Sameshima's photographic practise and his attempt at placing photographs in an open narrative located within a story of New Zealand photography and our consumption of New Zealand's visual culture. It is a very complex book.
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