A selection of photographic landscapes by Mike Spedding.

Mike is a former curator and Director of the Tairāwhiti Museum. He has also worked as a heritage consultant and managed and interpreted numerous heritage sites across Aotearoa. He has had a long-time interest in photography as a means of storytelling.

Te Oro o Te Whenua includes images of the coastline and bush of Tūranganui a Kiwa. Reminders of what we have got, what we have lost, and, what we are losing. Tracing the impacts of colonisation and climate change on our whenua. Images that also help capture emotions and memories of our connections with the world around us.

The landscape both reveals and obscures our past. It’s not just what you can see, but what is hidden from view, or lost. These are things that can bury our past, bury the stories of our ancestors.

The presence of absence. Sometimes it’s what’s missing that’s doing all the talking.