Volcano

Volcano

E whakahau ana te ingoa Volcano i te take papawhenua i tōna horopaki; i te kitenga o te mea i te whakaahua, ka kite ehara i te mea tūturu, he tauira i hangaia peange. Ko te nuinga o ngā kaponga a Pardington i ngā tau 1990, ko te aronga matua ko ngā taonga i kōwhiria i te kohikohinga o te whare pupuru taonga. Ka āpitingia te taitapa o tētehi rīpene whakaahua me te aro pū a te kāmera ki ngā tuhinga ā-ringa i runga i te mea, kia whakaatu i te wero a te ringatoi ki te tūturutanga o ngā mea ka kapohia e ngā tāngata kapo whakaahua. Heoi anō, ko te raweke i te ingoa me te tūturutanga, arā, ko te mea tonu e whakatairite ana ki te tope a te tākuta i te uma o te tangata - e tohu mai ana, he nui noa atu ngā mea kāore e kitea ana e te mata.

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Volcano only vaguely suggests the geomorphic subject of its title; once seen the object in the photograph is identifiably unnatural, presumably a manufactured model. As with much of Pardington’s photography from the 1990s the focus is on an object selected from a museum collection. The inclusion of the border of the negative in the print and the close attention of the camera revealing the handwritten notations on the object suggests that the artist is testing photography’s claim to be a medium that documents the truth. However, the play between title and the reality—the object is a medical cross-section model of a human breast—suggests there is much more to this than meets the eye.

— Text developed for Te Hau Whakatonu: A Series of Never-ending Beginnings (5 August 2023–11 February 2024), curated by Taarati Taiaroa