The New Sun
11 Feb - 13 March 2021
Jhana Millers Gallery, Wellington.
Through photographs and embroidered textile works The New Sun juxtaposes the empirical finds of land trace, with the more speculative imaginings of what life might have entailed for the women living with, or alongside, the male miners within early settler-colonial Aotearoa.
Taken between 2013 and 2016, a period when McQuarrie was travelling regularly around Aotearoa, the photographs depict sites of former mining activity. Many of these places are marked by signs or plaques, designating their place as ‘an historic site’, but predominantly they are hiding in plain sight. Landforms shaped by 19th century mining for gold and quartz. These undulations, channels and (now rarely) structures, are what tangibly remain from the brutal process of extraction of minerals from the land, that was fuelled by so many aspirations for prosperity. Brutal for the ecology of the land and brutal for the miners engaged in such perilous and back-breaking activity.
There is a very resonant counterpoint to the tone and material process of the accompanying hand-embroidered works on linen. The texts in these works, written by the artist, consider the female experience, ‘filling in’ for records that are very thin on the ground.
These works seek to offer a new way into thinking about this period of our history, to achieve a richer understanding of the legacies and traces threading between then and now, there and here.
Extracts taken from the full essay by Heather Galbraith: The New Sun: new photographic and textile work by Caroline McQuarrie.
Exhibition catalogue here
Full exhibition text by Heather Galbraith here
They gave you a list. 2021.
Incline. 2016
The brightness is blinding. 2021.
It seems you spend every waking moment. 2021.
You do not have time for sorrow. 2021.
Black sand. 2017.
Tunnel. 2013.
Tailings. 2016.
Water race. 2016.
You walk into the room. 2024.
Sluiced hills. 2016.
At home you call them mountains. 2021.
You blinked and it was winter. 2021.
Fool’s Gold. 2017.
Mine shaft. 2016.
Flume trestles. 2014.
His labour is gouged into the land. 2021.
The homestead does not seem so far away. 2023.
List of works
They gave you a list. 2021. Linen and cotton thread. 37.5 x 37.5 cm.
Incline. 2016. Digital photographic print. 40 x 40 cm.
Photograph taken on land that holds a Ngāti Hauā statutory acknowledgment from the Crown.
Incline: A slanting shaft; also a slope, not necessarily underground.
Sluiced hills. 2016. Digital photographic print. 55 x 55 cm.
Photograph taken on traditional Kati Huirapa ki Puketeraki land purchased by the Crown from Ngāi Tahu on 31 July 1844.
Cement: A hard alluvial deposit, often a conglomerate.
The brightness is blinding. 2021. Linen and cotton thread. 37.5 x 37.5 cm.
At home you called them mountains. 2021. Linen and cotton thread. 37.5 x 37.5 cm.
It seems you spend every waking moment. 2021. Linen and cotton thread. 37.5 x 37.5 cm.
You blinked and it was winter. 2021. Linen and cotton thread. 37.5 x 37.5 cm.
You do not have time for sorrow. 2021. Linen and cotton thread. 37.5 x 37.5 cm.
Fool’s Gold. 2017. Digital photographic print. 80 x 80 cm.
Photograph taken on traditional Ngāti Waewae land purchased by the Crown from Poutini Ngāi Tahu on 21 May 1860.
Iron pyrites, which being of a brassy yellow colour is often mistaken for gold.
Black sand. 2017. Digital photographic print. 80 x 80 cm.
Photograph taken on traditional Ngāti Waewae and Kati Mahaki ki Makaawhio land purchased by the Crown from Poutini Ngāi Tahu on 21 May 1860.
Black sand: Either magnetic iron, titanic iron, tin, manganese, or other fine, black, heavy sand accompanying gold.
Mine shaft. 2016. Digital photographic print. 40 x 40 cm.
Photograph taken on traditional Kati Huirapa ki Puketeraki land purchased by the Crown from Ngāi Tahu on 31 July 1844.
Shaft: A vertical or inclined communication from the surface into a mine.
Tunnel. 2013. Digital photographic print. 40 x 40 cm.
Photograph taken on traditional Ngāti Waewae land purchased by the Crown from Poutini Ngāi Tahu on 21 May 1860.
Tunnel: Strictly a passage open at both ends; often used loosely for an adit or drive.
Flume trestles. 2014. Digital photographic print. 55 x 55 cm.
Photograph taken on traditional Ngāti Waewae and Kati Mahaki ki Makaawhio land purchased by the Crown from Poutini Ngāi Tahu on 21 May 1860.
Flume: A channel constructed on trestles to carry water.
Tailings. 2016. Digital photographic print. 80 x 80 cm.
Photograph taken on traditional Ngāti Waewae land purchased by the Crown from Poutini Ngāi Tahu on 21 May 1860.
Tailings: Refuse from workings after the ore has been extracted.
His labour is gouged into the land. 2021. Linen and cotton thread. 37.5 x 37.5 cm.
Water race. 2016. Digital photographic print. 80 x 80 cm.
Photograph taken on traditional Kati Huirapa ki Puketeraki land purchased by the Crown from Ngāi Tahu on 31 July 1844.
Race: An aqueduct or channel for conducting water to or from the place where it performs work.
The homestead does not seem so far away. 2023. Linen and cotton thread. 37.5 x 37.5 cm.
You walk into the room. 2024. Linen and cotton thread. 37.5 x 37.5 cm.