Sanderson are pleased to announce the acquisition of four works by Kate van der Drift for the permanent collection at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.
The four works include two unique silver gelatine negatives titled ‘Poa Annua (Annual Winter Grass)’ and ‘Pinus Contorta (Wilding Pine)’, a chromogenic photograph from a 4x5” lumen negative titled ‘Convolvulus Arvensis (Bindweed)’ and a diptych of chromogenic photographs titled ‘Waitawa Bay Looking South East’ featuring Waitawa Bay at night. All four works were exhibited in van der Drift’s most recent exhibition ‘Dance, Dance’, which featured the artist’s latest body of work produced over the course of her residency with the Auckland Council on Waitawa Regional Park in 2024.
‘The lumen exposures in Dance, Dance resulted from the alchemical coming together of natural and manmade entities: sunlight, plant material, silver, herbicide and marker dyes. Van der Drift placed plants on sheets of large-format, silver gelatin film outdoors, and then developed the film using herbicides and marker dyes – not just any herbicide, but the type commonly used to kill the plant being documented in each photograph. That such, sublimely beautiful images being produced in this way is nothing short of magic. These photographs underline the entanglement of nature and culture in conservation efforts, such as those occurring at Waitawa where introduced plants are being eradicated and native flora are being re-established.’ – Virginia Were
The photographs will be exhibited in 2026 at Te Papa as part of an exhibition focussing on the work of women photographers in Aotearoa, curated by Lissa Mitchell.
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