‘This book, combining texts by Chris Price and images by Bruce Foster, is the third in the kōrero series from Massey University Press edited by Lloyd Jones. The series ‘invites new and exciting collaborations for two different kinds of artistic intelligence to work away at a shared topic’. The first two in the series were High Wire, a collaboration between Jones himself and the artist Euan Macleod, and Shining Land by Paula Morris and photographer Haru Sameshima. I had the pleasure of reviewing High Wire, and wrote that ‘The Jones/Macleod kōrero debut is an ambitious place to start and on the strength of this launch we can look forward to the series.’ The Morris/Sameshima book was another ambitious collaboration, not least because like its predecessor it challenged assumptions of easy compliance or partnership in the ‘collaborations’. In neither case were the images just illustrations serving a text; nor were the texts extended captions or commentaries on the images. What made both books fascinating to engage with was the complex interplay of narrative and tonal distinctions between text and image; of individual sensibilities whose ‘collaboration’ often involved a mutual reveal of differences: not just the obvious differences between visual and written representations, but differences of perception and interpretation, of individual ‘takes’ on the situation.’
Read the full review at the Academy of New Zealand Literature here.
