Te Ahi Ka reviewed in Photomonitor /  by Martin Toft

'The contemporary and the historical are interwoven into layers like lush ferns on the deep forest floor. Portraits of the 19th century ancestors of modern New Zealanders are shown alongside their descendants, past lives brought to the present. They lived with the historic injustices that only now are being corrected….

...The cycle of life is ever-present, from seed to tree to fruit to rot and then seed again. The pacing of the images also tells a story, from forests and the sea to people, then to forest and sea again. The people are a part of the ever-renewing cycle of nature, where past is present.'

Read full review of Te Ahi Kā by Riikka Kuittinen on Photomonitor.co.uk

Copies can be purchased worldwide through Dewi Lewis Publishing. For New Zealand, Australia and South Pacific visit Oratia Books. In Jersey books are available at CCA Galleries International and Société Jersiaise. All Special or Collectors Editions contact me directly.

Aternatively meet us at Les Rencontres de la photographie, Arles where special book signings will happen both at Temple ARLES BOOKS 3-4 July and at Hyper Cosmos 5 July
#teahikā #photobook

Last remaining days to see Becque á Barbe at CCA Galleries International /  by Martin Toft

'On a linguistic level the project is exploring the space between the formal, etymological and vernacular use of Jèrriais. Photography as a medium is mute and the challenge is to photograph, what essentially is a spoken language’.

Last remaining days to see exhibition Becque á Barbe / Face to Face CCA Galleries International, 10 Hill Street, St Helier, Jersey. 23 May - 12 June.

Featured today in Islands of the Mind and recently in  Jersey Evening Post.

All framed photographs are for sale and money raised will help to support the project to continue in its endeavour to make 100 portraits of Jersey’s native speakers. So far thirteen portraits have been made and the long-term plan is for the project to be made into a published book. All portraits will enter the Photo-Archive Societe-Jersiaise for future research and public enjoyment.

Société Jersiaise #becqueabarbe #jerriais #portraiture

Te Ahi Kā reviewed in PhotoBook Journal /  by Martin Toft

Excellent review of Te Ahi Kā on PhotoBook Journal today by Wayne Swanson. Thanks to Editor Douglas Stockdale for commissioning it. 

Copies can be purchased worldwide through Dewi Lewis. For New Zealand, Australia and South Pacific visit Oratia Books. In Jersey books are available at CCA Galleries International and Société Jersiaise. All Special or Collectors Editions contact me directly. #teahikā #photobook

Becque á Barbe at CCA Galleries International /  by Martin Toft

My new exhibition of Jersey’s native speakers will be showing at CCA Galleries International 23 May to 10 June. Please come along to some of the following events.

Private View with drinks reception 5:30-7:30pm 23 May 
Coffee drop-in and pop-up studio portrait session 10:30-12:30 23 May 
Gallery Talk – In conversation with Martin Toft 13:10-13:50pm 24 May

A preview of Becque à Barbe was showing at La Fête du Jèrriais from 2-5 May hosted at Jersey Museum / Jersey Heritage.

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Interview with Aperture Foundation /  by Martin Toft

Recently I spoke with Will Matsuda at Aperture Foundation. You can read the interview here on their blog published to coincide with the latest issue of Aperture Magazine, “Earth”. Thanks to Managing Editor Brendan Embser for commissioning the piece.

'Who can tell the story of an indigenous community? In 1996, photographer Martin Toft traveled to New Zealand and spent six months living with the Māori, participating in an illegal occupation of Mangapapapa, an ancestral land inside Whanganui National Park. It was during this time spent documenting their lives that Toft formed a deep connection with the land and community—even being given a Māori name, Pouma Pokai-Whenua. Twenty years later, Toft returned to New Zealand to rekindle the the spiritual kinship he had experienced and continue his project. But, as photographers and critics reckon with the medium’s colonial, often racist history when it comes to representing non-Western people, how do photographers reckon with issues of representation and power?'
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In a conversation between Will Matsuda and Martin Toft they discuss making his new book, Te Ahi Kā, against the backdrop of decolonization, climate change, and Māori spiritualism. https://aperture.org/blog/martin-toft-will-matsuda/

Copies can still be purchased through Dewi Lewis. For New Zealand, Australia and South Pacific visit Oratia Books. In the Americas go to Grenade in a Jar Books. All Special or Collectors Editions contact me directly.

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Te Ahi Kā featured in Archive Collective Magazine /  by Martin Toft

Thanks to Curator, Maela Ohana for an extensive feature of Te Ahi Kā in Archive Collective. The book consists of 89 colour and b&w photographs including rare images held in 19th and 20th century collections in New Zealand, such as portraits made by Alfred Burton’s Maori at Home (1885) and James Ingram McDonald, Dominion Whanganui River Expedition (1921.)

Research in New Zealand archives was an important element of the development of the book’s narrative and structure as well as allowing images of ancestors from national collections to be seen by the descendants of those featured in 19th and 20th century portraits. An important aspiration of the book is the reconnection of people to their tribal taonga (treasures), and in its broadest sense assist in wider reclamation of Māori knowledge, language, and customs.

Consultation to use the images was sought from living members of whanau (family) and permission granted according to Taonga Māori policies held in New Zealand museums that acknowledges the kaitiaki (guardianship) and copyright of any Māori cultural treasures - including photographs belonging to iwi (tribes).

Seven hidden chapters of text appear inside fold-outs that include conversations with tribal elders in relation to Māori cosmology and provide context about the return to their ancestral homeland, Mangapapapa deep inside the Whanganui River.

Copies can be purchased through the Dewi Lewis website. For New Zealand, Australia and South Pacific visit Oratia Books. In the Americas go to Grenade in a Jar Books. All Special or Collectors Editions contact me here or through my website.