Hanging with the curators
World Press Photo exhibition, Auckland, Thursday, 11am
It’s a balance between art and maths. Two enormous crates are implausibly squeezed into the lifts and taken up to the sixth floor of Auckland’s Smith & Caughey’s department store.
The cargo of 145 photographs, flown from Amsterdam, is carefully unpacked ahead of the three-week World Press Photo Exhibition.
Arranging and rearranging the photos on the floor is curator Anais Conijn.
She and a team of hangers have a little over 24 hours to get it all set up.
‘‘I’m not even sure the amount of time we fuss over them, whether people actually notice,’’ Conijn says.
But it is a meticulous dedication nonetheless.
The series of photos are assembled into a narrative structure without taking away from the story each image is telling.
‘‘We want to be as unpresent as possible, it’s always about the work of the photographer,’’ she says.
There’s also care not to freak out visitors straight away with too many confronting photos.
‘‘You don’t want to dump them straight into the misery, you don’t want them to finish in misery, so you have to create a flow where people go through a bit of an emotional arc.’’
There’s no shortage of horror; from natural disasters, terror attacks, the Charlie Hebdo shootings, Tianjin explosion, airstrikes in Syria and the refugee crisis.
It’s a snapshot of the major news events of 2015 along with some human interest and sports.
And it’s a travelling roadshow that will be shown in 100 cities in 45 countries to more than 4 million people.
‘‘It’s a logistical miracle,’’ Conijn says. ‘‘But it all pans out’’.
I’m not even sure the amount of time we fuss over them, whether people actually notice.
Helping unpack and hang the photos are Wellington artists Ellen Coup and James Harcourt.
They’ve brought their own drills, measuring tapes, and spirit levels.
Coup sizes up a group of framed photos of North Korea, measures them against the wall and says, ‘‘it’s maths, we’ve just to get it all to add up’’.
The pair have a methodical approach and a ‘‘bit of a system we’ve developed’’, Harcourt adds.
They’ve done it each year for more than a decade because they are passionate about the photography, he says.
‘‘It’s about respect for what the show means. It’s such an important show for people to see how everybody else in the world is living.’’
Anais Conijn
The World Press Photo Exhibition opened yesterday and runs until July 24. Proceeds will go to Rotary.