Russ Flatt, Omarunui, 2022. Inkjet photograph on Hahnemühle Photo Rag, Edition 3, 50 x 85cm. Courtesy: the artist and Tim Melville Gallery.

The title of Russ Flatt’s exhibition of ten new photographs is a reference to a powerful group of farmers and businessmen: The Twelve Apostles.

In 1870 the men purchased the 19,000 acre Heretaunga Block in Hawkes Bay from Thomas Tanner -who had illegally leased it from Ngāti Kahungunu Māori – and by 1873 it was being used by the settlers to lay out the city of Hastings.

Flatt has used 3D LiDAR scanner film technology and point cloud lens mapping to survey the contested whenua (land).

The photographs often feature ethereal images of ghostly female figures occupying a veiled landscape.

In Flatt’s timeline the past and the future are not linear; all histories are spiralled into the present.

Opening event: 26 October, from 6pm.