Corson-Scott Chris: The Afterglow of Industry

The Afterglow of Industry brings together photographs from a ten-year project in which artist Chris Corson-Scott repeatedly travelled the extent of Aotearoa New Zealand, seeking out unknown, or remote sites which illuminate our dysfunctional present. Following this, several years were spent researching and writing on each of the 79 photographs featured in this book. In these texts, colonial and industrial histories weave in and out of geology, pre- European Māori history, outside forces from the United States and Europe, and contemporary issues like privatisation, asset sales, the New Zealand housing crisis, and the country’s rebranding as a ‘clean & green’ tourist destination.

Similar to the collapse of America’s industrial Midwest, New Zealand has also experienced the whiplash of industry vanishing. Here though, this has been complicated by much of this industry first emerging in conjunction with European colonization. Corson-Scott’s work focuses on these tensions, particularly in Te Waipounamu South Island, where the regions of the West Coast and Otago see industrial remnants contrasted with vast and complex landscapes. From these areas come images of freezing works on sacred rivers, contested mining projects, dwellings of 19 th century Chinese miners, gold processing plants still contaminated more than a century later, floods of acid mine drainage, and the demolition of factories which once built the country’s modern infrastructure. Elsewhere, on a remote sandspit is one of history’s largest whale strandings, industrial spaces are repurposed by artists, controversial hydroelectric schemes divert rivers, ancient forest remnants become tourism, and city fringe orchards are bulldozed for development.