Publication Details Softcover, 160 pages, 24 x 17cm, 77 colour plates plus essay illustrations. ISBN: 978-1-98-854313-0
Author and/or Editor name/s D (Dale) Harding, Bruce Johnson McLean, Ian McLean, Te Herekiekie Herewini, Megan Tamati-Quennell and Zara Stanhope
Author and/or Editor bio/s D (Dale) Harding is a descendant of the Bidjara, Ghungalu and Garingbal peoples and draws upon and maintains the spiritual and philosophical sensibilities of his cultural inheritance within the framework of contemporary art.
Bruce Johnson McLean is a member of the Wierdi people of Wribpid (Belyando River region in Central Queensland), and the Assistant Director, Indigenous Engagement at the National Gallery of Australia.
Ian McLean is the Hugh Ramsey Chair of Australian Art History at the University of Melbourne.
Megan Tamati-Quennell (Te Ātiawa, Ngati Mutunga, Ngāi Tahu, Kāti Māmoe and Waitaha) is a leading curator and writer of modern and contemporary Māori and Indigenous art, and Curator Modern and Contemporary Māori and Indigenous Art at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongawera.
Zara Stanhope is Director of the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery|Len Lye Centre.
Te Herekiekie Herewini manages Māori repatriation at Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongawera.
Year of publication 2021
Publisher Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth
Abstract A collaboration between the artist, curator Megan Tamati-Quennell and Clouds design, ‘There is no before’ reflects on the first solo exhibition of D (Dale) Harding in Aotearoa New Zealand. The book reflects the artist’s vision to be a type of guide for family in Carnarvon, Central Queensland, on lost treasures taken from his Country, and connections to be made with his site-specific interventions and works made for the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery.
Essays and images together enlarge on Harding’s relationship with land and people, including connections made with tangata whenua (people of the land) in his preparatory visit to Taranaki in 2019. The book opens with museum documentation of eighteen nulla nulla, rarely-exhibited taonga/treasures from the collection of Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongawera, exhibited by Harding in recognition of their unbroken connection to his family.
The texts enlarge on Harding’s unceasing research into the ancestral and spiritual power of materials and his reflections on intersections between Indigenous (Bidjara, Ghungalu and Garingbal) and Western knowledge and cultural forms. Colour plates document Harding’s innovative work with ochres from his matriarchal and patriarchal lands which are given new life breathed onto paper and glass, applied to architecture and used to dye silk in ways that are distinct from but respect ancestral practices, as well as his use of acacia tree sap in his family’s millennia-long relations with local timbers and plants. An invited, material response from local artist WharehokaSmith (Taranaki/Te Ātiawa/Ngāruahine) indicates a sharing of First Nations world views.
Overall, ‘There is no before’ conveys Harding’s material and conceptual experimentation bringing Country, family and contemporary art into new, affective and international conversations.
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