Moa, Arthurs Pass

Moa, 1995 is a black and white photographic print by Haruhiko Sameshima of tourists photographing and admiring a statue of a moa located in Arthur's Pass in the South Island. It was taken in 1995 using a Zeiss Super Ikonta camera and a two-and-a-quarter-square-inch negative. The composition is organised into areas of tone - the dark trees, the light sky, the hills - which radiate outwards from the moa in the centre of the photograph.

eco-Tourism
This photograph is one of a number of works by Sameshima in the Te Papa collection that are part of what the photographer calls eco-Tourism. A conceptual framework rather than a stylistic approach, eco-Tourism includes an ongoing series of square-format black and white photographs of tourist and cultural destinations. Along with Moa, 1995, Te Papa owns Globe, Canterbury Museum, also taken in 1995. Although the subjects are different, each photograph is a kind of tourist snapshot, created while the artist travelled, as a tourist to major tourist destinations around New Zealand.

Behind the scenes
In many ways Moa, 1995 is a classic eco-Tourism photograph. Sameshima has photographed tourists photographing each other in front of a faked display of nature. But what differentiates his photograph from the snapshots of the tourists is his interest in the transaction itself. Moa, 1995 is an image of a tourist attraction in action. The elements of 'attraction' - the act of tourists looking and taking photographs - are the subject, rather than the statue of the moa.