Thread Between Darkness & Light
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Thread Between Darkness and Light, a new photo book by artist Stella Brennan, began with the gift of a painting: a depiction of Rangitoto with a mysterious ruin in the foreground. Investigating its painter led Brennan to an 1897 photograph of her great-great-aunt Louise Laurent with her female classmates - students at the same art school Brennan attended a century later. Struck by this uncanny affinity with her previously unknown ancestor, Brennan embarked on a journey of research and revelation.
Cold-calling long-lost relatives, she unearthed an archive of Edwardian glass plate negatives, which a cousin had carefully preserved since Louise's death in the 1960s. Despite being cracked and marred by mould and dirt, Brennan meticulously scanned the 300 fragile plates. Her first realisation of Louise Laurent and her husband William Winn's 100 year-old archive was an immersive installation of 36 translucent silk banners, displayed in 2023 at Te Whare Toi, City Gallery Wellington.
This book delves deeper into these historical images, juxtaposing the passage of time with startlingly contemporary framings and content. There is even a string-assisted selfie of Louise and William together. On the other hand, the extreme damage sustained by some of the negatives, the cracked glass, peeling emulsion and blooms of mould speak to the time between then and now. It is this tension that animates the project - this superimposition of time and place. An evocative collaborative essay enlarges the historical and material context. Susan Ballard, Professor of Art History at Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington, Kirsty Baker, Curator at Te Whare Toi, and Lissa Mitchell, Curator of Historical Photography at Te Papa, bring their unique perspectives to a text that breathes life into these spectral images.
Brennan's documentation of her discovery process is complemented by historian Ross Galbreath's riveting account of Louise's adventurous mother Lucie, tracing her journey from birth in a London workhouse, to the 1871 Siege of Paris, to her arrival with her three daughters in 19th-century Tamaki Makaurau/ Auckland, Aotearoa/New Zealand. Thread Between Darkness and Light is not just a photobook; it's a poignant bridge across generations, a tapestry woven from the traces of the past into the light of the present.
About the Author
Stella Brennan is a writer and sculptor based in Tamaki Makaurau. With a research-focussed practice spanning from the handmade to the highly mediated, her work prises open history, its losses and possibilities, interrogating colonialism, industrialisation and computerisation. Her video has screened at festivals including: the New Zealand International Film Festival; the Short Film Festival Oberhausen; Videotage Hong Kong; Recontres Internationale, George Pompidou Centre and been included in the Sydney and Liverpool Biennials. Her installation Wet Social Sculpture, featuring whale song, psychedelic film and a fully operational spa pool was a nominated finalist in the 2006 Walters Prize. Ancestor Technologies, curated by Kirsty Baker at the City Gallery Wellington (2023) gathered together 20 years of work, and was the first exhibition of the installation Thread Between Darkness and Light. Her works are held in the collections of Te Papa Tongarewa and the Chartwell Trust. Lissa Mitchell is a photographic historian and curator of photography at Te Papa Tongarewa.
She is the author of Through Shaded Glass - women and photography in Aotearoa New Zealand 1860 to 1960 (2023) and contributed to An Alternative History of Photography (Prestel, 2022) and Flora - Celebrating Our Botanical World (Te Papa Press, 2023).Kirsty Baker is a writer, art historian and curator at City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi, where her recent exhibitions include Ana Iti's I must shroud myself in a stinging nettle (2022), Stella Brennan's Ancestor Technologies (2023), Ngahuia Harrison's Coastal Cannibals (2023) and Julia Morison's Ode to Hilma (2024). Her writing on contemporary art has been published widely. Her book Sight Lines: Women and Art in Aotearoa will be published by Auckland University Press in 2024. Susan Ballard is an art writer, curator and Professor of art history at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington. Her work spans the fields of art history, creative nonfiction, and environmental humanities. Recent books include Alliances in the Anthropocene (with Christine Eriksen, Palgrave 2020) and Art and Nature in the Anthropocene: Planetary Aesthetics (Routledge 2021). Her curated exhibitions include Listening Stones Jumping Rocks (2021) and Folded Memory (2023) both at Te Pataka Toi Adam Art Gallery.
Her new book Shift Work: Art and Life in the Third Millennium (with Liz Linden) will be published by Punctum in 2025.Ross Galbreath is an independent researcher and historian. He began as a scientist in DSIR, the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, but a few years before DSIR disappeared in the reforms of the 1980s he left to pursue what had previously been a part-time interest in history. After completing another Ph.D. he has written in various fields including environmental history (Working for Wildlife, 1993), history of science (DSIR: Making Science Work for New Zealand, 1998), business history (Energy and Enterprise: the Todd Family 2010), and biographies of scientists Walter Buller (The Reluctant Conservationist 1989) and G.M. and J.A. Thomson (Scholars and Gentlemen Both, 2002). He continues to research and write in these and other fields in both science and history.