Nature – Stilled

By Jane Ussher

Te Papa Press 2020

Reviewed by Caroline McQuarrie for PhotoForum

I grew up in a family that bought the New Zealand Listener magazine every week, so my first memory when hearing the name Jane Ussher is of consistently excellent portraits of our nation’s great and good through the 1980’s and 90’s. Ussher was staff photographer at the New Zealand Listener from 1977 to 2008, becoming a household name and earning a well-deserved reputation for photographs with warmth and generosity. Since leaving the New Zealand Listener Ussher has produced a string of book projects, including two shot in Antarctica, alongside continued freelance editorial work. Her latest publication is Nature – Stilled published by Te Papa Press, which sees Ussher utilising her egalitarian eye in imaging the museum’s natural history collection.

An impressive 364 page volume Nature – Stilled is generous and inclusive. Photographs of the various members of ten different species make up the photographic sections which are the bulk of the book, with an introduction by Ussher and a text section at the back where the Te Papa natural history team give a description of each image in non-scientific language. This is clearly a book designed to interest the general public in what Te Papa have behind the scenes. The work put into producing such an impressive tome is clear, and it is obvious that all involved put a great deal of care and love into this book.

The danger of a project like this for photographers is that they become simply a documenter, items are laid out and recorded, with little to none of the photographer’s voice shining through. The line between good quality functional photography useful for scientific work and photography that takes a more aesthetic approach can be difficult to walk in a project that looks to have genuine collaboration from both sides. The intention of the publication is set out clearly by Ussher’s name on the cover as author – this is her interpretation of the collection, and her hand is evident in the photographs. She writes in the introduction that she worked alongside Te Papa curators who suggested ways to photograph each item, but she also mentions that she had a clear vision for how she wanted the photographs to be. The consistency of the imagery is impressive technically, but when the photos really shine is where the photographic point of view is unexpected, breaking the idea of simply documenting.

Some of the images are remarkably contemporary and wouldn’t look out of place on a gallery wall. Others contain the unmistakable ephemera of museums and transport us back to the late 19th or early 20th century when the objects were collected. In many images Ussher gives the labels and packaging as much attention as the objects, sometimes more. Some objects are placed squarely in the centre of the frame, others arranged artfully in groups. The reproductions of x-rays from the fish collection are intriguing, particularly the eel with pins placed at intervals to assist counting of the vertebrae. The introduction written by Ussher is conversational and informative. She references the spaces the exhibitions live in, and the pull they had for her. But mostly she emphasises the collaborative nature of the project, and how the publication resulted from a co-selection process between herself and the curators. Ussher is our envoy into a world usually closed off to us. Through her interest and enquiry we get to see the ‘treasures’ of the museum, and we also gain access to the curators in the interesting explanatory text they provided about each object.

The photography in the book doesn’t employ innovation for its own sake, it relies on quality over novelty. However despite the pared back nature of the photographs with their white backgrounds, there is a warmth to them. These photos were clearly made by someone who was genuinely invested in the work. One of my favourite photographs in the book is of the album of pressed ferns and mosses from 1875, where the hand of the maker is evident in the artful arrangement. But also very affecting are the images where Ussher eschews the wide depth of field used in most of the book, and pushes a photo emotionally by picking out the feathers of a birds head, or the claws of a kiwi. The huia portrait also pulls at the heartstrings.

There is a melancholia to this book. Of course we know these collections exist, but we rarely see them in this kind of profusion. And as Ussher notes, this is just a small portion of the collection. This type of colonial museology harks back to a time of natural abundance that Aotearoa New Zealand hasn’t seen in a long while. It reminds us strongly of what we have lost. However the publication doesn’t shy away from this, in fact the title Nature – Stilled refers to it, and the cover photograph of a dead tui ‘skin’, stuffed, labelled and with a wire protruding from it, clearly points to what is inside. In fact the overall design of the book is very clever, but not in a showy way. The photos are arranged not by species or any scientific grouping, but chromatically. The subtle shift from white to brown through the colour range feels like a swelling wave as you work through the book. Ussher credits award winning designers Inhouse Design for this idea. Inhouse have a track record for creating top quality books for artists and designers, including the recent Tatau: A History of Sāmoan Tattooing, also published by Te Papa Press. Their treatment of the material in this publication brings together a large collection of images in a coherent and engaging way.

Ussher is a photographer who having shifted from an editorial career to a concentration on book publishing has been somewhat overlooked by the art photography world. This is a shame because she has a distinct point of view and a clear interest in photographically exploring Aotearoa New Zealand’s history. Ussher is not alone in photographing inside our national museum, but she gives us a different point of view than the cool Germanic storage rooms of Neil Pardington, or the aestheticised objects of Fiona Pardington. Ussher’s point of view is genuinely collaborative, we can see the generosity of the curators behind the making of this publication, and that could only have happened if they were invested in helping the photographer. I would imagine the same interpersonal skills that helped Ussher take great portraits have also built good relationships behind the scenes of this book, taking an approach which is inclusive of both the collections and the people who care for them.

Nature – Stilled is a book that will have wide appeal. It would be a great Christmas present for a nature obsessed child or teen, a museum obsessed adult, or simply anyone interested in the detail of life in Aotearoa New Zealand. Ussher along with the Te Papa team across various departments have created a beautiful publication which will have people returning to its pages over and over.

Caroline McQuarrie is an interdisciplinary artist whose primary interest is the concept of home, whether located in domestic space, community or the land we identify with. She works with photography and craft practices to explore meaning carried in objects and domestic, suburban or community sites. Exploring the role of the feminine in everyday life, and investigating the capacity for the act of making to create agency in women’s lives, McQuarrie is concerned with how memory and sentiment is manifested in photographic and/or hand crafted objects. Caroline is a Senior Lecturer in Photography, Whiti o Rehua School of Art, Massey University, Wellington.

All specimen images © Jane Ussher. Reproduced with permission from her new book Nature – Stilled, published by Te Papa Press. All specimens featured are part of the collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.