Ōtautahi Christchurch
Aotearoa New Zealand
©2025 Tim J. Veling
Selected colour street portraits, 2007-10.
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The photographs in this series were taken between 2007 and 2010, during a time when I had very little time or money to dedicate to photography. The body of work remains unfinished due to the Canterbury earthquakes. After such a life changing event, my mental space was so radically affected I no longer wanted to be a photographer. In time, thankfully, that sentiment passed.
On the morning of the big earthquake of February the 22nd 2011, I sat down with a series of disjointed photos – numbering many more than represented here – and wrote the following statement. I had hoped that by intuitively responding to the images in front of me I might find a way forward with the work; that writing down what they reminded me of might hint at other things I could photograph in order to flesh out a large project with some kind of unifying idea or feeling. If I’m honest, at the time I had grand aspirations of being some kind of antipodean Alec Soth and the photo-world is packed full of imitators. While I still feel the two paragraphs I quickly knocked out below indicate something of promise towards developing the work further – at least when read withing the context of the extended series of pictures – it’s a shame that large project will remain unrealised.
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One of my earliest memories is of our family home in Blenheim. We lived on a back section and shared a long driveway with another property. A small concrete fence flanked by an unwieldly toi toi bush marked the division with our neighbours section. On our side of the fence, dark grey paving stones served as the perfect place to sunbathe after a swim in our Para-rubber swimming pool. I remember lying there, my stomach flat against the hot ground and the sun scorching my back. It seems a strange thing to remember fondly, but there, wearing my togs and lying face down on the ground, I’d urinate and watch as my piss seeped slowly through the cracks of the paving before evaporating. When my togs were dry, I got dressed. If I lay there any longer I knew my skin would burn. In those days, no one cared about sun block or talked about the ozone layer, but I knew all too well the dangers of New Zealand’s sun. Back then, it seemed sunburn was all there was to worry about.
Twenty-five years later, when the summer sun dips below the horizon and the smell of barbequed meat hangs in the air, it’s easy to forget how much New Zealand has changed, let alone how much I’ve grown. But, if the light is just right and I squint, I can still see myself lying on that hot patch of concrete. Thankfully, such visions don’t elicit the pungent smell of urine soaked togs. That’s one memory best resigned to the past.
Best Made Plans, Kirikiriroa Hamilton, 2012.
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Photographs for Best Made Plans was made as part of a three-week fellowship at WINTEC, School of Media Arts, Kirikiriroa Hamilton, New Zealand. The work forms part of Survey Hamilton, an ambitious multi-media project and archive that documents the city of Hamilton. Special thanks to David Cook and the School of Media Arts team for their generous support, encouragement and sponsorship.
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Shepherd sits in the rotunda, his arms spread across the wooden banister. Lank hair sticks to his forehead. It’s thirty-two degrees and we’ve both given up on the day.
“No one owns the river, bro. The river owns you.”
Despite his dark wrap around sunglasses, I can see piercing eyes staring straight into mine. Awkward, I look at my feet.
“The river, bro. The river!”
He raises his arms, his palms facing the sky.
“The river!?”
He flashes a toothless grin and slaps his thighs.
“I’m not trying to trick you, bro. I’m just saying, the mighty Waikato is too powerful to claim as yours or mine. She is home to the spirits of great ancestors, but she runs her own path. She is a living creature, but today she is tired. I’ve never seen her waters so low. So depressed.”
He shifts in his seat and crosses his legs. He wraps his right arm around a post to hold his weight and keep from falling forward. Beside him, the words R I V E R and C A R plus stick figure hangmen are scratched into the paint of the rotunda. He traces the letter R with his finger, then the line of its underscore.
“The river,” he repeats, before tracing the hangman.
He places his palm over the letters C , A and R, as if erasing the word they spell.
As the sun dips behind us, the sky turns a perfect shade of emerald blue. A Taylor Swift song, blaring from a nearby pub, drowns out the hum of traffic that crosses the Bridge Street bridge.
Confused and lonely at the same time. It’s miserable and magical, oh yeah!
As the song moves into the chorus, a Subaru station wagon pulls into the car park. Four men wind down the windows and unwrap Subway sandwiches. A passenger in the back seat throws an empty cigarette packet onto the concrete beside him. A bird swoops in with the hope of finding an easy snack. The driver drops a plastic bag out the other side. Shepherd shakes his head.
“Where are you from, bro?” he asks.
“Christchurch.”
“Another river city, eh bro? Not quite the mighty Waikato, but still. Those earthquakes have shown that looks are deceiving. Christchurch city, that flat bit of asphalt dumped on top of mud and gorse – just like Hamilton. I saw the news. The earth shook, the roads cracked and the underground rivers flooded to the surface. I saw holes big enough to swallow cars, busses, even houses. All on T.V. of course, but the water! It was amazing!”
The sound of the Subaru station wagon’s exhaust suddenly roars across the car park, frightening a flock of birds out of a nearby tree. They fly east before making a sharp turn northwest, towards Te Rapa. The driver reverses out the car park, but not before dumping more rubbish out his window.
“That’s the problem with Hamilton, bro,” Shepherd says.
“We’ve lost our Tūrangawaewae. One day Papatūānuku will remind us our roads and malls, this concrete jungle covered in cars and fast food restaurants, stands only with her blessing. She created this river. She rechannelled water west from Lake Karapiro, towards Ngaruawahia and the Waipa River. She has the power to flood and wash it all away. Believe me, bro. She can and will. For that, we should be scared.”
Shepherd’s tone, like the sky, has suddenly turned dark. His description of a vengeful mother earth fights with the din of clubs, pubs and restaurants all gearing up for a busy Friday night. The sound of people yelling, groups cuing with 18+ Cards and drivers licenses at the ready, more Taylor Swift and Gangnam Style, blow off valves, breaking glass and an ambulance siren. It all serves to agitate him.
“Bro, there was a time when all of this was nothing but swamp. Between the river and the gullies, it’s a wonder the city didn’t sink into the muck the moment it was built.”
He uncrosses his legs, bends down and pulls a moleskin, Rodd & Gunn hat out of his bag. He places it on his head, adjusts his sunglasses and gets to his feet before slinging the bag over his left shoulder. He looks up the river before walking down the steps of the rotunda and onto the footpath. He stops and turns to look at me.
“The Maori name for Hamilton is Kirikiriroa. The pa was one of the original Maori settlements. It’s my ancestral home. Translated, Kirikiriroa means ‘long stretch of gravel’. Who could have ever predicted that stretch of gravel would someday turn into Te Rapa Road? Who could have imagined that the road would be lined with car yards, or that following it would lead you to a shopping complex owned by Tainui? The biggest in Aotearoa, bro, full up with junk made in China! Plastic fantastic!”
He shrugs, shakes his head, then walks north. Before disappearing into the night, he turns back to face me. He shouts.
“All roads lead to the river, bro. Not to The Base. Not to Subway or Mitre 10 Mega. All roads lead to the river, bro.”
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Survey Hamilton is an active documentary project, created by a collaborative team of researchers from Wintec. They make photographs, video and sound recordings, exploring aspects of contemporary Hamilton culture.
The project will produce:
- An archive at the Hamilton Public Library
- A website
- Exhibitions
- Publications
The intention is to create community engagement and space to reflect on factors that are shaping the city. This project will form a valuable archive of images and sound that has value now, and for future generations. The project runs from 2011 to 2014.
Rewilding, 2017
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Following on from Thx 4 The Memories and Vestiges, Rewilding formed a part of my efforts to document the post-earthquake evolution of one red-zoned Christchurch suburb.
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After photographing Avonside intensely for six years and feeling increasingly over-encumbered with my large format camera–not to mention fatigued by a project with no foreseeable end–I forced myself to change the way I photographed the area as a kind of creative ‘circuit-breaker’. The experiment didn’t last long–the lure of the large format camera is a hard one to resist, and I wasn’t wholly enamoured with the results from this detour in process–but my efforts weren’t entirely without reward…
Once a week between July and November of 2017, armed only with a handheld camera and fresh single roll of black and white film, I parked my car near the Swann’s Road bridge and tried simply to enjoy a series of leisurely walks along the banks of the Ōtākaro. Tired of attempting to capture highly detailed, colour-saturated images that required laborious setup of equipment and long wait times, on these walks I forced myself to loosen up; to work spontaneously and point my lens at scenes and details within the area that, in a very basic sense, caught my eye. Not exactly rigorous thinking, but at the very least maybe it’d result in imagery that challenged my status quo.
The shift to using black and white film–up until this point I shot primarily with a high-resolution, digital medium format back of 4x5” view camera with colour film–was born out of a somewhat nostalgic desire to reengage with the basic photographic processes that formed the basis of my early practice; to concentrate more on light and abstract form, and the production of physical prints by hand within the meditative space of the darkroom.
While this body of work remains incomplete and mostly sits uncomfortably amongst other work made in Avonside, it did serve its purpose in helping lift me out of a bit of a creative funk.
The images in this gallery constitute a distilled edit of images taken during this period.
Early colour street work, 2006
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Additional 35mm work from this abandoned generative project is burried deep within negative storage boxes, lost to time. I remember a good number of additional images as being up to snuff, but I don’t have the energy to wade through everything and fear I’d only find disappointment. This work morphed into the colour street photographs, shot on medium format transparency film, presented at the top of this page.
We Stand Here: Children’s Vision for their Ōtautahi, 2021.
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“Why are cities for grownups, dad?”
This innocent question, for which he could think of no answer, was posed by photographer Tim J. Veling’s seven-year-old daughter. Used to examining the city through the lens of his camera, it compelled him to consider Ōtautahi Christchurch through the eyes of young people. Wanting to understand the place his daughter aspired to live, he decided to enlist the help of a group of children—perhaps they might help him see imagination, possibility and vibrant optimism where he was long resigned to a wash of grey.
Veling facilitated a series of discussions and workshops with twenty-four students of Christchurch East School. He asked them to consider what home meant to them; what smells, tastes and sounds make them feel connected, safe and happy. He asked them to list the kinds of things, from practical to fantastical, that they felt would turn this space into their place.
From these initial exercises, they were asked to alter one of Veling’s panoramic photographs of Cathedral Square. Taken on a dreary day during COVID-19 Alert Level 3, this multi-panel image captured the Square almost empty of people. Through a combination of photography, collage and drawing, the students inserted themselves over the top of the image. The resulting artwork reveals creativity, diversity and above all an aspirational city they would feel proud to call ‘home’.
From an exotic fruit vendor specialising in Nepalese delicacies, to a monument to our national bird. Cherry trees to commemorate Japanese people tragically lost in the earthquake, with fanciful tree houses built within them—a place for people to sit and reflect. Plus the children themselves, the lifeblood that gives it all purpose. This is the place of their dreams, but does it have to be? Veling’s challenge to those in positions of influence is to look at this vision and listen to all these creative minds have to offer.
We Stand Here: Children’s Vision for their Ōtautahi was exhibited at Tūranga Christchurch Central Library, 2021.
We Stand Here: Children’s Vision for their Ōtautahi as a collaboration between students of Christchurch East School and Tim J. Veling, with assistance from Raine Angeles, Andrea Baker and Nadine Luscombe. This educational project builds on a project undertaken in collaboration with David Cook and Freeville School, utilising the same process of collage in service of discussions around place, time, belonging, youth and cultural identity.
Participants: Sonya Mallard, Akina Baker, Liana Martin, Riley Kauri Birt, Zhia Evangelista, Ranesh Gnanamani, Luca Heca, Minahil Rizat, Japnoor Khubber, Aimee Sharma, Tane Kumeroa, Aaron Kumar, Jasmine Biswa, Adhviayja Peesu, Zakria Ayobia, Tanishqa Patil, Nina Bean, Tim Kernahan, JC Omugton, Joshua Smedley, Ruby McNabb, Rayyan Ali, Srisan BC, Mikaela Patpat.
The Freeville Project, 2013.
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A collaborative project by Tim J. Veling, David Cook and the students and teachers of Freeville School, New Brighton, Christchurch. The images above constitute a representitive selection of work from the project.
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Freeville School was located on Sandy Avenue, in the heart of New Brighton, Christchurch. It had a roll of 283 pupils, from new entrants to year eight.
Prior to the 2011 earthquake, Freeville School commissioned the ‘Freeville School Landscape Concept Draft Plan’ (Rough & Milne landscape architects). This plan incorporated a wildflower bed, native trees, native shrubs and children’s artwork. With a clear agenda to educate and engage the community in the school’s surrounding ecological landscape, this plan could never have foreseen the dramatic events that followed its conception. As a result of the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes, the plan went unrealised.
In 2013, the Ministry of Education announced that Freeville School was to merge with North New Brighton and Central New Brighton Schools. In 2016, the Freeville site was abandoned and buildings and facilities – situated on land sold to the Ministry of Education by the Free family for the purpose of building an education facility – were scheduled to be demolished soon after.
At the time, the future for the land itself was uncertain. It was especially ambiguous if allowance was to be made for the school’s surrounding community to contribute ideas to inform the redevelopment. Within that ambiguous space this project aimed to collaborate with remaining students and staff of Freeville School and help them re-imagine and articulate their own vision for the land’s future.
In November 2013 Tim J. Veling and David Cook spent a week with two classrooms at Freeville, taking photographs and running creative workshops. Rather than dwell on the nostalgia of loss, they asked the children to imagine the future of their school grounds. They responded, in writing and artwork, by expressing their colourful, humorous, sometimes wacky but genuinely innovative ideas.
As the children completed their work, we progressively pasted their pictures and text to the walls of the New Brighton Mall. At the end of the week, the school proudly launched their billboard-sized project. The public display happened to coincide with the Christchurch East by-election and candidates from all parties descended on the mall and stopped to take it in. Standing in front of the children's words and pictures, they couldn't help but understand that this community has a loud voice that must be heard.
The Freeville Project was originally commissioned by TEZA (Transitional Economic Zone of Aotearoa) as part of a week-long series of art projects that engaged with - and was shaped by - the community of New Brighton.
The Freeville Project was also exhibited at RAMP Gallery, WINTEC School of Media Arts, between the 5th of June and 27th of June, 2014.
Project commissioned by TEZA
Produced by Letting Space
The Freeville project forms part of Place in Time, the Christchurch Documentary Project
Collaborators:
- 67 Freeville Primary School pupils
- Teachers: Tracey Barber, Nicole Cunningham, Bernice Swain & Sharon Thompson.
- Facilitators and photographers: David Cook & Tim J. Veling
- Assistants: Bayley Corfield, David Draper & Hannah Watkinson
- Special thanks also to Mark Harvey
Funding partners:
- Wintec
- University of Canterbury
- Place in Time: The Christchurch Documentary Project
- Massey University
- Canterbury Community Trust
- Chartwell Trust
- Creative New Zealand
Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu 1988
The following piece of writing was commissioned by the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu for the ‘My Favourite’ section of the monthly Bulletin, issue number 183, for which I chose this photograph by Peter Black.
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I spent much of my adolescence in hospital, confined to bed due to a chronic illness. With a 14" TV beside me, I’d travel to imaginary places via the controller of my Nintendo games console. At the time, I couldn’t imagine walking to the letterbox, let alone experiencing the more exotic places of the world.
It’s little wonder that when finishing high school my ambition was to study to become an animator. I wanted to reside in my imagination and create fantastic and surreal worlds to get lost in. When I entered the Ilam School of Fine Arts I was completely naïve as to what life had in store for me. As the saying goes, I learnt pretty quickly—not without cajoling by lecturer Glenn Busch—that reality is sometimes much stranger than fiction. It was then that I f irst became aware of Peter Black’s work and declared I wanted to be a photographer.
Glenn talked of driving Peter around while he photographed out of his car window. He said that he couldn’t walk down the road with him and have a conversation because Peter would always be side-tracked and on the hunt for images. Glenn reckoned Peter was an obsessive breed of photographer that could transform everyday, banal things into extraordinary moments with his camera. I quickly learnt that this was no mean feat. To recognise the potential of a good photograph, to see something happening before you, and to frame and photograph it is one thing, but to articulate and sustain a personal voice within a series of photographs is quite another. Sitting in the studio at Ilam, I’d study my own proof sheets and compare them to Peter’s. We were photographing similar things; why were his so much better? Then came a revelation. It was what his photographs implied, not what they depicted that carried weight. I realised the ambiguous mental space that fell just outside of view was just as important as the space rendered between the edges of each frame—that magic mixture of content, perspective, light, timing and composition. This changed my way at looking at art forever.
The first time I saw Peter’s Selwyn Toogood, Levin, I remember stopping in the City Gallery exhibition space and staring at Selwyn’s teeth, rendered bright white and Bugs Bunny like between awkwardly pursed lips. I imagined him being caught mid-sentence asking: ‘What’ll it be, New Zealand? The money or the bag?’ When I was a kid I’d shout ‘The bag!’ back at him, believing good fortune comes to those who take risks. Put in the contestants’ shoes now as an adult, pragmatism would dictate I’d choose the money— no matter how meagre the figure—to pay my astronomical power bill. From Selwyn’s teeth and lips, my eyes wandered the surface of the print and, after failing to adjust to the harsh light emanating through the window blinds, were drawn to the pot plants lining the top of the frame, the Formica table in the bottom right corner, the garish wallpaper. I then noticed the cash register and painted sign on the window of the door. This is a typically small town, Kiwi, dining establishment. A fish and chip shop, maybe? The angle of view is skewed just enough to imbue the image with a sense of unease.
Considering the context surrounding this photograph, I began to think about the social-political climate of New Zealand in 1981. After the Springbok rugby tour and with the country heading into steady economic decline, Muldoon’s National Party would soon be narrowly elected for a third term in government. Their time in power would be cut short with Muldoon calling a snap election. Many who care to remember cite this moment as the end of the ‘good old days’ and the birth of hardline, neo-liberal politics in New Zealand. In hindsight, perhaps what Selwyn was really uttering was a warning of things to come—the money or the bag?
Sight, Unseen
Catalogue of exhibition curated for InSitu Photo Project, Ōtautahi Christchurch.