Artwork Information

When Adams first exhibited is Rotorua photographs, he gave the exhibition a bilingual title Pakeha • Maori — A Conjuncture / Maori • Pakeha — He Waerenga Ururoa. He was fascinated by instances where the interplay between cultures in the region was visible – such as the Toot and Whistle Stream Railway, a popular tourist attraction.

Adams' long-time collaborator, Australian anthropologist Nicholas Thomas, provides a perceptive analysis of this diptych. He notes: "the subject is obviously not 'Maori carving in any classical or exoticised sense, it's the conjuncture. A conjuncture in whice tourism and recreation (the railway) loom large, as part of the various elements of colonial modernity (the edge of the carpark), while the overhanging gum tree evidences the singular trans-Tasman, Australasian dynamics of a particular colonial history."

- Sarah Farrar, Mark Adams: A Survey | He Kohinga Whakaahua, 2025