Exhibition Explores Retro Christchurch

A nostalgic new exhibition by Christchurch Art Gallery reveals the central city as it’ll never be seen again.

Featuring 76 black-and-white photographs taken between 1983 and 1987, David Cook: Meet Me in the Square is a visual, time-travel journey back into 1980s central Christchurch.

“Punks, nuns, bell-ringers, schoolboys and cricket crowds make up some of the fascinating cultural commentary that is Meet Me in the Square,” says Christchurch Art Gallery director Jenny Harper.

“It’s a vivid re-run of a period long before we experienced the earthquakes, capturing the mood of a city that’s familiar, yet strangely unfamiliar,” she says.

“As a student, then graduate, of the University of Canterbury’s School of Fine Arts, David Cook wandered the streets at all times of day and night, finding new vantage points and meeting strangers. The camera was his licence to explore.

“After the earthquake on 22 February 2011, David revisited that body of work, in a way rebuilding the city through his photographs.

“I’m very pleased that we can share his work in Christchurch, particularly as this is our last off-site exhibition before the Gallery’s much-anticipated reopening in December.”

To accompany the exhibition, Christchurch Art Gallery has also published a new book in collaboration with David Cook called Meet Me in the Square: Christchurch 1983–1987.

The book features more than 75 double-page photographs from Cook’s archive of more than 6,000 taken during the mid-1980s.

David Cook is a photographer and lecturer at Massey University's College of Creative Arts, in Wellington. Most of his projects deal with contested space, community and ecology. He studied science and photography at the University of Canterbury, and fine arts at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.

David Cook: Meet Me in the Square is on display at 209 Tuam Street, Christchurch, from 31 January until 24 May 2015. Entry is free.

Opening times: 

10am–5pm, Monday to Friday, and 10am–4pm, Saturday and Sunday.