Cast in light: Life in a mining town
Cast in light: Life in a mining town
Joseph Divis (1885-1967)
National Library Te Puna Foundation Gallery
Corner Molesworth & Aitken St, Wellington
12 March to 6 July 2024
Joseph Divis outside his cottage, 1931. Ref: 1/2-233064-G. Alexander Turnbull Library.
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.
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.