Manapouri: Art, Power, Protest
This online exhibition offers a sample of items from 'Manapouri: Art, Power, Protest', a 2007/08 exhibition at the National Library Gallery.
The exhibition uses the collections of the Alexander Turnbull Library to explore New Zealanders' fascination with Lake Manapouri. It is remarkable that an isolated southern lake has played such a central role in New Zealand's cultural and political history.
The exhibition is divided into four sections, each looking at a particular cultural investment in Lake Manapouri.
Manapouri as a site for art
Late-19th and early-20th century artists flocked to Lake Manapouri, armed with sketchbooks, cameras, and the conventions of European landscape painting. The image of Lake Manapouri was soon fixed through concepts of picturesque beauty and sublime grandeur. Lake Manapouri became a key subject in the beginnings of a local landscape painting tradition.
Manapouri as a site for industry
Engineers and entrepreneurs saw the lake in another way – as a source of hydroelectric energy. This vision was realised with the construction of the Manapouri power station in the late 1960s, one of New Zealand's most ambitious and controversial industrial developments.
Manapouri as a site for protest
The 'Save Manapouri' campaign began with a meeting of concerned Southland residents determined to oppose the raising of the lake. The message quickly spread, and the 'Save Manapouri' campaign became New Zealand's first nationally co-ordinated environmental movement. The campaign has been credited with awakening a 'green consciousness' in New Zealand.
Contemporary Manapouri
Artists continue to be drawn to Lake Manapouri. The contemporary photographers featured in the exhibition respond to Lake Manapouri as a contested site where political, artistic and environmental ideals clash.
'Manapouri: Art, Power, Protest' provided the perfect opportunity to have this late-19th-century painting restored.
A sketchbook featuring work by W M Hodgkins, his daughters Frances Hodgkins and Isabel Field, and fellow artist Katherine Holmes.
Invercargill-based artist Samuel Moreton made several trips to Lake Manapouri at the turn of the 20th century.
Collecting photographs of New Zealand's scenic wonders and making them into souvenir albums was a popular activity.
Lake Manapouri has been seen as a potential source of hydroelectric power generation since the early 20th century.
In 1960 rights were granted to build a hydropower station at Manapouri.
This ex-passenger liner housed nearly 300 men working on the construction of the Manapouri power station.
Women staff on the floating hostel the 'Wanganella' were vastly outnumbered by male workers, leading to some interesting moments.
This fundraising measure for the 'Save Manapouri' campaign promised a 'perpetual dividend' – the preservation of the lake.
Scientist Sir Charles Fleming was an important part of the 'Save Manapouri' campaign.
The 'Save Manapouri' campaign gave newspaper cartoonists plenty of material in the early 1970s.
Nearly 1 in 10 New Zealanders signed the 'Save Manapouri' petition, demanding the Government reconsider raising the lake's levels.
Involved in the 'Save Manapouri' campaign in the late 1960s, photographer Craig Potton continues to remind us of our environment's beauty and fragility.
Wayne Barrar has travelled widely, recording the ways humans have modified the landscape, including photographing the Manapouri Underground Power Station.
Photographer Haruhiko Sameshima's 'eco-Tourism' project is an investigation of the way sites like Lake Manapouri have been packaged for the tourist gaze.
