Afterglow of Industry

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A01=Chris Corson-Scott
Aotearoa New Zealand
Author_Chris Corson-Scott
Category=AJCD
Chris Corson-Scott
Colonial History
Eco-tourism
Ecology
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Extractive Industry
Global South
Industrial Architecture
industry
New Zealand
Pioneer Photography
Post-Industrial
Sustainability
Vernacular Architecture

Product details

  • ISBN 9781954119451
  • Dimensions: 320 x 267mm
  • Publication Date: 28 Aug 2025
  • Publisher: Daylight Books
  • Publication City/Country: US
  • Product Form: Hardback
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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.

Chris Corson-Scott is an artist from Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand. His photography has been exhibited in over 40 museum and private gallery exhibitions in Aotearoa, and his work is held in permanent collections including: Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, and Ngā Puhipuhi o Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington Art Collection. His previous publications include Evanescent Monuments (2018), and Dreaming in the Anthropocene (2017), both on Compound Press. Christina Barton is a writer, curator, editor and educator based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand. She is the former director of Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery at Victoria University, Wellington, and was previously a curator at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, and Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.

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