New Zealand photographers on the world stage
New Zealand has been invited to compete in one of the grandest international photo contests of the year — Kelly Lynch talks with the woman responsible for selecting our most promising local photographers
New Zealand has been invited to participate in one of the most prestigious, invitation-only photography competitions in the world, with an important visitor from Japan recently travelling to our shores to meet some of the country’s most acclaimed photographers.
Last year D-Photo magazine published a feature on Japan’s first selfproclaimed ‘photo town’, and the extensive international photo festival held there annually. Every August professional and amateur photographers flock to Higashikawa, located in the centre of Japan’s northern island, Hokkaido, fulfilling the town’s manifest to grow relationships and culture through photography.
The schedule is loaded with lectures, workshops, high-school photography championships and exhibitions, but the festival’s highlight is the presentation of the Higashikawa Prize awards, followed by a symposium. There are five award categories, four open to Japanese residents and, unique to these awards, an Overseas category in which a selected country is invited to partake.
This year the Higashikawa Photo Festival celebrates its 31st year, and for the first time New Zealand has been chosen to participate in the overseas category, with one New Zealand photographer eventually selected for the prominent award.
Larger countries like the USA and Australia have previously been represented, but this year the jury was looking to select a smaller country, one with which they had a connection and could support and grow in partnership. Other countries seriously considered alongside New Zealand were Israel and Norway.
Greatly assisting our relationship with Higashikawa is Julia Durkin, public participation director for the Auckland Festival of Photography. Higashikawa is a new partner in the Asia Pacific PhotoForum organization, of which the Auckland Festival of Photography is a founding member, and last year Durkin visited Higashikawa’s photo festival to strengthen this new relationship.
“We’re delighted that in 2015 New Zealand has been selected as the country for the award,” she said.
In January this year curator, photo critic, and director of the Higashikawa Award Winners Exhibition, Aki Kusumoto, travelled to New Zealand to meet some of the award finalists and view their work. But prior to leaving Japan, through her research and with assistance from Durkin, she had begun with a list of approximately 30 photographers to consider.
“I tried not to limit the range for my own interest but to search a wide range of photographers actively working in the country, trying to include well-established photographers as well as those from the younger generation,” Kusumoto explained.
After further research and conversations with people like Athol McCredie, photography curator at Te Papa Museum, she arrived at her shortlist of 10 to 12 New Zealand photographers. While in New Zealand she was able to meet with eight of them: Anne Noble, Anne Shelton, Fiona Pardington, Gavin Hipkins, Shigeyuki Kihara, Yvonne Todd, Mark Adams, and Wayne Barrar. She returned to Japan with a copy of their photo books and catalogues to present to the awards jury of eight members. From all over Japan and from diverse backgrounds, the jury consists of a unique collection of experts, and amidst the photographers there are designers, art critics, and novelists. They serve on the jury for five years, and Kusumoto said their ideas appeal more to a general audience, not just photographers.
When researching countries to partake in this year’s international award category she saw the large difference between photography produced in Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific and that from Japan, Europe, and other regions was its inclusiveness of Maori, Aboriginal, and other indigenous cultures. She sees this of relevance in Hokkaido, where Ainu are the indigenous people.
What impressed her about many New Zealand photographers is how they are taking their theme seriously from their cultural, historical, and geographical backgrounds.
“People have talked a lot about digitalization of photography since 2000, but now is the time that digital is more common practice, and our thoughts about photography both in digital and analogue are much deeper,” Kusumoto said.
In February the jury panel deliberates and decides the winner from each of the five award categories. It is the first time they will view each photographer’s work, looking for “visual images that provoke”. The winners will be officially announced in May, and travel to Hokkaido to partake in the photo festival in August. There the New Zealand winner of the Overseas Photographer Prize will witness their work occupying one fifth of the festival’s nerve centre, the Higashikawa Bunka Gallery, the town’s modern dedicated photography gallery.
Prizes of monetary value up to $11,000 will be gifted to the winning photographer in exchange for their original prints, which will be retained by the gallery for future use. The number of photographs each winner displays will be dependent on the size and style of their images. Regardless, the work will be in good hands, the gallery has eight staff, a general manager, a curator and two specialists caring for photographs.