Description:

The everyday places and spaces we use and occupy represent a historical and geographical palimpsest of the ever present past. Understanding Aotearoa’s dark history is vital in recognising how past events underpin contemporary societal issues like inequity, marginalisation, and racism. Selective Remembering, and Settlement as Forgetting, - the act of deliberately forgetting and evading historical events, including violence perpetrated against Māori to establish settlements – has led to ignorance of the difficult history of Aotearoa amongst many ‘Kiwis’. Particularly detrimental, this ‘enables Pākehā control and upholds the ongoing dominance of colonialism’.

GSR1863 aims to confront this ignorance by shedding light on the overlooked history of the Great South Road (GSR) and its role in the 1863 Land Wars in Aotearoa. With the ongoing changes to the high school history curriculum, there is no better time to remember our past and consider its impact on the present-day.

Also motivated by my own desire to understand the history of the road that I live on, GSR1863 is a product of an immersion into historical, contextual, and archival research, and practical fieldwork along GSR between Tamaki Makaurau and Kirikiriroa. While exploring several sites of significance, I aimed to create a visual narrative in the form of an interactive publication that would engage and educate, highlighting the effects of the events on Māori particularly. Much of the fieldwork involved photography to gather content and record findings. Using techniques like Rephotography, the publication features spreads in which a contemporary photograph is juxtaposed with an insert of the original taken from the same location, providing the reader with a method of visualising the history, while comparing then and now. Carefully selected excerpts from historians and authors contribute to a compelling chronological narrative, highlighting the GSR's significance in Aotearoa's history.

The design system draws on experimental ‘Swiss Grit’ layout and the application of distressed, weathered textures collected during field work to communicate and emulate a historical war-time theme. The black and white colour scheme references the road itself, whilst creating a consistent and coherent visual identity for the publication alongside the archived material. The Swiss binding style exposing the spine is symbolistic of exposing the secrets and hidden history of the road, while the Coptic binding provides a connection to history as it is resemblant of a historic book. Interactive elements in the form of inserted archival photographs and unfolding documents add another dimension to the book and an element of authenticity, allowing the reader to feel like they are physically unfolding the layers of history. Fabriano Clay paper stock allow cartographic elements to standout and combined with a screen-printed fabric cover provide durability as well as a tactile feel and experience.

It is hoped that interactive publications like GSR1863 can be used as a tool by New Zealanders to look back in order to move forward. GSR 1863 can contribute towards creating a better future by acting as a steppingstone to encourage New Zealanders to further engage with and explore both local and national history.