Cast in light: Life in a mining town
12 March to 6 July 2024 | Te Puna Foundation Gallery, Ground floor
Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm | Saturday, 9am to 1pm
Free entry
Joseph Divis (1885-1967) photographed New Zealand mining towns in the early 1900s. This exhibition shows some of those images, illuminating rare insights into work inside the mines and the drama of life above ground.
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Explore Joseph Divis's photographs held at the Alexander Turnbull Library.
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Joseph Divis, gold miner, photographer
Joseph Divis (1885-1967) took photographs of life in New Zealand mining towns in the first part of the twentieth century. He worked underground as a gold miner, which gave him access to the mines. His images, including flash photographs, provide a unique record of mining as well as life in mining communities, especially the now-abandoned town of Waiuta, on the West Coast of the South Island, where he settled.
Joseph Divis outside his cottage, 1931. Ref: 1/2-233064-G. Alexander Turnbull Library.
In 2009 the Alexander Turnbull Library acquired most of the surviving photographs taken by Divis. This exhibition features some of those images, illuminating rare insights into work inside the mines, as well as the drama of life above ground in once-thriving Waiuta.
Read about Joseph Divis
In her blog post Re-visioning Joseph Divis and Waiuta Caroline McQuarrie, Senior Lecturer in Photography at Whiti o Rehua School of Art, Massey University, shares details from Joseph Divis's photographs of Waiutu.
Re-visioning Joseph Divis and Waiuta
Acknowledgements
The National Library thanks Simon Nathan as curator, members of the Divis family, and 45 Design Studio for their support of this exhibition.
Feature image at top of page: Image is detail of a photograph of a group of miners waiting to go underground at head of Blackwater shaft in Waiuta. Ref: 1/2-233070-G