PhotoForum #94A: Māhina Pink

Photography and design Jane Wilcox

Published by PhotoForum and Jane Wilcox, March 2021

Softcover, 14 pp, staple bound, 178 x 270mm, Silk Matt 150gsm

ISSN 0111-0411

These images are part of an ongoing series, captured over a year. Jane Wilcox is currently working towards a photobook Between dog and wolf to be self-published through Bad News Books, July 2021, and a series of zines Māhina, June 2021.

The special advance PhotoForum edition of the zines Māhina Pink and Māhina Green (from the Māhina series of eight zines) are available exclusively to members of PhotoForum Inc.

Between dog and wolf

Māhina has three meanings in Māori. It can be the moon, early morning light, dawn, or twilight, dusk. I have taken one meaning referring to the time of dusk, twilight. There is a French saying ‘entre chien et loup’ or between dog and wolf, the Scottish refer to it as ‘ the gloaming.’

It is a time of the in-between, of day and night, of light and dark. Every culture has myths, fables and stories around this time. Patupaiarehe, fairies, elves, mythical creatures who emerge to be seen within this very short time, away from the glare of the day but before the darkness falls. It is a time when the daylight has its last glow, it can be red, yellow fading into blue into black. A time when birds sing, hunt, meet before darkness falls, a magical almost mystical period when time is caught before suddenly it has moved on.

‘I believe a myth is more than a legend or a story. It’s a complex set of fragments and memories based on the accumulated interaction between people through time, and between man and the environment. It forms the core of identity.’ -José Alves

‘The pale stars were sliding into their places. The whispering of the leaves was almost hushed. All about them it was still and shadowy and sweet. It was that wonderful moment when, for lack of a visible horizon, the not yet darkened world seems infinitely greater—a moment when anything can happen, anything be believed in.’ Olivia Howard Dunbar, The Shell of Sense

All these images have taken within this very short time period of dusk, in Wellington, around the narrow paths and walkways and the gardens, The Botanical Gardens and Wilton Bush. These are spaces that we walk through often to and from work, or to relax, play in, they are often spaces we revisit to connect ourselves to the environment externally and internally.

They form a collective visual touchstone, a time, a season, a smell, a memory, a story, supernatural, magical. We need these spaces to be part of something bigger than ourselves, to be part of nature, time, wonder and beauty.

Jane Wilcox has been working at Massey University for over twenty years as the Technical Services manager /Head Technician within Whiti o Rehua School of Art.

Exhibitions have included Play/Childhood Landscapes, Photospace, Wellington NZ, Blender Gallery, Sydney, Australia and The Coningsby Gallery, London.

Between perfection and beauty Photo book, Bad News books. Nominated for The best antipodean photo books 2019. Reviewed by PhotoForum, March 2019

Co-curated with Caroline McQuarrie ‘Quicken; photography touch’. Exhibited in the Engine Room, Massey University, 2020. Instagram: jwilcoxpics