65significant layer to the abstraction. I’ve tried every
which way to debunk that thought, and I can’t.
It was a happy moment with folded eggs (2018)
when I found a way to tell a modest history and
memory narrative with a single-line essay through the
artist book that was not directly connected with the
images. The text is not an explanation of the images,
rather another layer or layers of narrative, which
accumulate meaning about a journey underpinned by
a visit to my grandchildren. Layered parallel stories,
speaking gently of grand concerns in a package that
is pared back and restrained. The images sat for four
years before it registered that there was something to
be made, that this material could be part of a history
and memory sentiment, linking events in Chile with
events in New Zealand, both countries of colonisation.
This is a precursor of the New Zealand Wars artist
book next year.
You know, sometimes your ideas come after
the fact. In June 1999, I had this opportunity to
photograph in an asylum in tragically disturbed
Kosova. The Kosovar Albanian head of the institution
invited me to photograph with her elated words, ‘free
Kosova’, on her first day back at work after NATO’s
removal of the Serb army, and the end of the war.
As I moved about the asylum, I refused to confront
my motives, something I am used to doing. I kept
telling myself not to ask why. It was too big a question
right then. In the days before, I’d seen devastation,
traumatised people, survivors of horror, the dead,
mass graves, even joy. Why was I photographing any
of it? Only later, back in New Zealand, did I recognise
those asylum images—and they were gentle and
peaceful almost—as a metaphor for the madness of
war, and weave them in and out of the others I had
taken through that time.
One dichotomy from the other side of the fence
took me by surprise. A Paris publisher had rejected
Body of Work (2015) for publication, my artist book
which forages for meaning amidst thoroughbred
horse breeding. During a meeting three years later(opposite) BRUCE CONNEW South Africa #57 Mourners, Victoria
Mxenge’s Funeral, Rayi, Ciskei, August 1985
Silver gelatin photograph, 160 x 236 mm.
(right) BRUCE CONNEW I Saw You #28 2007
Pigment print, 150 x 150 mm.
(below) BRUCE CONNEW Press Escape to Cancel #15: Enti Special
Hospital for the Mentally Ill, near Ferizaj, Kosova June 1999
Silver gelatin photograph, 160 x 236 mm.