NZCP closure?
May 8th, 2008
The New Zealand Centre for Photography currently has this notice on its front page:
“Due to financial constraints the Centre has reluctantly had to suspend services until further notice while plans are developed to establish a viable ongoing operation.” This is followed by a letter to member’s and friends, by Chairman Peter Ratner. The letter, while considerably longer than the above statement, doesn’t tell us much more.
As a member and a long time reader of the NZ Journal of Photography I’m sad to hear that it has been suspended. The Journal was a good read and an important part of NZ’s somewhat limited discussion around art and documentary photography.
What’s most alarming to me is that there doesn’t seem to be any discussion around this, at least not on the internet. The letter has been on the NZCP site for almost a month and the only item I can find responding to it is this post on Photography Matters. Perhaps many of the people interested in the NZCP are not internet savvy or are conducting their conversations in other forms (perhaps even in person… like in ye olde times?)
Does anybody who is reading this have a response to what seems to be the end of this photographic institution and publication? If so please leave a comment and perhaps some helpful discussion can be had?
May 17th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Hi Abby
No response to your post either, eh?
Members of the NZCP need to be vigilant, as things are afoot which will affect them. Someone should enquire as to what the NZCP Board of Trustees is currently up to…
May 17th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Not a word.
Yes agreed, members should make their voices heard somehow. Which I guess is the point of the blog posts but perhaps this needs to be done more directly. Watch this space…. I’ll update once we (PF) know more, as I’m sure you will.
February 28th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Well, the collection of the NZCP - photographs and other photography-related items - is well on its way through the process of being ‘deacquisitioned’. Picked over, in other words. But at least the contents will be split among various public collections, all of which have better storage facilities and public access than the NZCP ever did. So I guess that’s a good thing.
The poorest aspect of this is that the board of trustees has failed to inform their subscribership as to what is going on. I have personally supported the NZCP through subscription (an annual sum greater than the purchase price of the Journal) since soon after its inception. I have only found out what the board has been up to through my own enquiries. And there has still been no letter from them!
March 1st, 2009 at 8:43 pm
[...] to James for his comment on the quietly disappearing NZCP. As a sometimes subscriber (some years being more affluent than [...]
March 1st, 2009 at 9:53 pm
I manage the NZCP website and can only add that whilst there was a good measure of enthusiasm from the board initially, it dried up pretty quickly. I added the ‘operations suspended’ notice after waiting for quite some time for further updates and not receiving any. James’ summary pretty much covers the state of the collection. I’ll make some further enqiries soon and then decide what to do with the site.
March 1st, 2009 at 10:12 pm
Thanks for your feedback Rob. We look forward to hearing more information from you if/when have it available…?
March 18th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
Contributing to the ‘demise of the NZCP’ its pretty sad that only magazine dedicated to photography has stopped and and the NZCP and its collections. What happened to accountability of the board and its director in contacting donators of material and their preferences before hocking it off, or donating to the nearest public collection. At least the McCahon was sold to fund a building, now a valuable organisation and resource has gone down the toilet. Ahem