A New York Eye on the Rapa

A New York artist outside the Big Apple, Greytown, Wairarapa Valley — A New York artist outside The Big Apple, Greytown, Wairarapa Valley. Photo: GRB

In August-September 2016, Lois Conner, the New York-based photographer whose work is featured in this site, spent a week in the Wairarapa Valley. She stayed at le Quartier Français on the corner of Revans and Waite streets in Featherston, the gateway town to the valley situated at the foot of the Rimutaka Range northeast of Wellington, the capital of New Zealand.

The Valley has five major towns — Featherston, Martinborough, Greytown, Carterton and Masterton — and Lois visited them all to make work, as well as travelling around the valley and visiting Napier on the north-east coast with Geremie Barmé as part of early efforts to picture The Wairarapa Academy for New Sinology.

A selection of the works Lois made in the Valley appear below. We are, as ever, grateful to her for her generosity and support from the earliest days of the China Heritage Project in 2005, and which continues now.

Lois Conner’s trip to the Wairarapa was partially funded by Geremie Barmé’s Australian Research Council Federation Fellowship, ‘Beijing Spectacle’.

'Property Press', Megan J. Campbell, 2015 (property press refers to real estate listings and this work was inspired by a house near le Quartier Français and the Tarureka Estate in Featherston — ‘Property Press’, Megan J. Campbell, 2015 (Property Press is a free real estate weekly. This work was inspired by a house near le Quartier Français and diagonally opposite the Tarureka Estate in Featherston)

Megan J. Campbell, a Wairarapa-based artist who used to live at le Quartier Français, warmly supported Lois Conner’s work in the Valley and she has kindly allowed us to reproduce photographs that Lois made using some details of her paintings. Megan happens to be the sister of Duncan M. Campbell, whose essays and translations will appear frequently in these virtual pages. Duncan is also one of the founding members of The Wairarapa Academy (see the photograph of three of the founders below). — The Editor

Hydration Station, Waite Street, Featherston — Corner of Fitzherbert and Waite streets, Featherston

Palimpsest, with the work of Megan Campbell, an artist based in Featherston — Palimpsest, with the work of Megan J. Campbell

Spring streetscape, Carterton — Carterton

Statue of Charles Rooking Carter at Millenium Square, Carterton — Carterton

Mural, Featherston Train Station — Featherston Train Station

Geremie Barmé at Megan J. Campbell's house, Revans Street, Featherston — Geremie Barmé at Megan J. Campbell’s house, Revans Street, Featherston

Kōwhai flowers, Wairarapa Valley — Kōwhai, Wairarapa Valley

Detail of a work by Megan Campbell, Featherston — Detail of ‘Nightime’, oils and embroidery on canvas, Megan J. Campbell, Featherston

Left to right: Geremie R. Barmé, John Minford, Duncan Campbell, of The Wairarapa Academy for New Sinology, outside The National Library of New Zealand (Māori: Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa), Thorndon, Wellington

Featherston Train Station, in the direction of Wellington — Featherston Train Station, looking in the direction of Wellington

The photographer and the Editor of China Heritage outside Food Forest Organics, Greytown, August 2016 — The Photographer and the Editor of *China Heritage* outside Food Forest Organics, Greytown, September 2016