The Last Race

Seán McMahon & Dylan Owen

Photospace Gallery
1st floor, 37 Courtenay Place, Wellington

9 July - 21 August 2021

Opening 5pm, Friday 9 July

Exhibition hosted by Photography Aotearoa

View the PhotoForum featured portfolio with essay by Max Oettli here

The Last Race – Documenting the horse racing community

Dylan Owen and Seán McMahon

The central kuapapa for photographic collaborators Dylan Owen and Seán McMahon is the current state of horse racing in Aotearoa New Zealand. In 2018 the Minister for Racing, Winston Peters alerted the nation to the dire state of the thoroughbred horse racing industry within the country. He commissioned a report by the Australian racing manager John Messara. One of the recommendations of the report was to close twenty, mainly provincial racecourses and restructure the industry generally. The New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing (NZTR) board also recommended the amalgamation and closure of numerous racecourses. While the closure of these courses may have financial benefits to the profession, there are major financial and community impacts for the provinces and towns where these courses are based. A traditional way of community life will die with these closures, particularly in areas which have facilitated horse-racing for over one hundred years.

The photographic approach taken by Owen and McMahon is to capture these racecourses, their infrastructure, racing communities of trainers, owners, jockeys, punters and horses before these courses are closed permanently and the buildings demolished. They have also endeavoured to visually document the social side of racing, particularly on a thoroughbred club's final race day. To express these works artistically they have shot both in black and white, and colour photography. They have also used the dual mediums of film and digital photography. There are formal portraits, group portraits, photojournalism, architectural photography (internal and external), art photography and a dash of street imagery.

This work is part of a larger on-going project to conduct a documentary survey of every racecourse within Aotearoa, both current racecourses and those courses long since closed down. Further exhibitions are envisaged and hopefully this will lead to a horse racing publication eventually.

This exhibition would not have been possible without the support of Absolutely Positively Wellington City Council - Me Heke Ki Poneke and Splendid Photo - splendid.nz