PhotoForum MoMento 17: Crossroads - Davina Monds

Published by PhotoForum, April 2015

Designed and edited by Davina Monds

Production support: Shelley Jacobson, Jan Young, John B. Turner, and Haruhiko Sameshima

Cover photograph by Davina Monds

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Cross Roads is my personal, photographic response to Aotearoa/ New Zealand’s ever unfolding post-colonial history. The series was created in 2014 to coincide with the bicentennial celebration of Christian beginnings in Aotearoa, marked by Samuel Marsden’s initial sharing of the gospel with Maori on Christmas Day, 1814. Preached in English, Samuel Marsden’s service was translated to Te Reo Maori by Ngāpuhi Rangatira Ruatara of Rangihoua Pā. Ruatara is now honoured as Te Ara mo te Rongopai – The Gateway for the Gospel. It was a cornerstone sermon in this country’s history that has subsequently evolved into the various Christian communities existing in New Zealand today. The Cross Roads collection is about the diversity and influence of these different communities and the individuals within them. These seemingly separate entities are made congruent by their mutual foundations within biblical faith. Personal identity is conveyed through individual actions that communicate their chosen lifestyles, derived from their beliefs and values. I am interested in both the traditional elements of a more structured Churchbased faith and the attitudes of the streetwise modern-day Christian. My images are a conversation in iconography: lavish ceremonial Church robes; distinctive bike leathers; the slang of the suburban graffiti artist.

Exodus 17:15 Jehovah Nis’si; God is my banner.

Davina Monds 2015