Upcoming Talks
Professor Richard Jackson: Responding to Christchurch – Lessons and evidence from 20 years of War on Terror
Professor Richard Jackson.
The recent Royal Commission Report has made a number of recommendations about how to respond to the Christchurch terrorist attacks. This talk will examine what lessons, if any, can be taken from two decades of the war on terror, what research evidence can guide the government as it seeks to put the recommendations into effect, and what challenges there are in responding to the threat of terrorist actors.
Richard Jackson is Professor of Peace Studies and the current Director of the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Otago. He is the editor-in-chief of the journal, Critical Studies on Terrorism, and the author or editor of 14 books and more than 100 articles and papers on terrorism, political violence and conflict resolution.
Date: Thursday 22 April
Time: 5:30–6:30pm
Location: Hocken Library, Anzac Avenue, Dunedin
Free. All Welcome
Tel +64 3 479 8868
Dr Peter Simpson – Talk about McCahon at the Hocken
‘The Virgin and Child compared’, Colin McCahon, 1948.
Leading Auckland-based arts academic, writer, curator and McCahon scholar, Dr Peter Simpson presents a talk about McCahon at the Hocken in conjunction with the Hocken Pictorial Collection exhibition Colin McCahon: A Constant Flow of Light.
Date: Saturday 17 April
Time: 2:00pm – 3:00pm
Location: Hocken Library, Anzac Avenue, Dunedin
Free. All Welcome
Tel +64 3 479 8868
Regular Tours at the Hocken
A rear view: Behind the scenes tours
Every Thursday at 11am (tours are 50 mins).
Join one of our friendly guides and learn about the Hocken. Check out the amazing materials in our archives, ephemera, maps, music/AV, photographs, pictures and published collections. Bookings not required. Limit of 10 people per tour. Tour starts at Hocken reception.
What’s in store? Art! - not currently offered
First Saturday of each month at 11am-12pm.
Did you know that the Hocken has one of this country’s most important collections of modern and historic New Zealand art including works by leading artists such as Rita Angus, Ralph Hotere, Robin White and Colin McCahon? Hocken staff will take you into the pictures store-rooms to see some of these art treasures. Bookings are required: Tel 03 479 8868. Limit of 10 people per tour. Tour starts at Hocken reception
Current Exhibition
Colin McCahon: A Constant Flow of Light
‘The Virgin and Child compared’, Colin McCahon, 1948.
Saturday 15 August 2020 – Saturday 1 May 2021 (closed for Easter Friday 2nd- Tuesday 6 April)
Hocken Collections Uare Taoka o Hākena holds one of the most important collections of McCahon’s art in New Zealand in addition to significant archives relating to his life and work.
Focusing on the period between the mid-1930s and mid-1970s, ‘A Constant Flow of Light’ draws from these collections presenting major works of art such as ‘The Virgin and Child compared’, 1948 and ‘The Wake’, 1958, examining key ideas the artist explored over this forty year period.
The Hocken began collecting New Zealand modernism in the 1950s because enlightened professionals such as former Hocken Librarians H.D. Skinner and Michael Hitchings and professional staff such as Hocken Art Curators Gordon Brown and Tim Garrity, worked alongside cultural patrons including Charles Brasch, Rodney Kennedy, Patricia France, John Caselberg and the McCahon family to ensure works by McCahon and other New Zealand modernists were represented in the Hocken’s art collection. Aware of the significant role Dunedin had played in shaping the beginnings of New Zealand modernism, they considered the Hocken, as a research collection accessable to all, the best place for important examples of this work to be housed. Their endeavours, combined with the University of Otago’s support, is the reason why the Hocken’s McCahon collection is so outstanding.
Originally timed to coincide with the ‘McCahon 100’ commemorations celebrating the artist’s birth in 1919, the end date for ‘A Constant Flow of Light’ has been extended in acknowledgement of McCahon’s significant relationship with Ōtepoti Dunedin and to share, investigate and interpret his life and art for new and current audiences.
In addition to Hocken collection items, the exhibition features a selection of notable McCahon works borrowed from the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Te Manawa, Palmerston North and the Govett Brewster Gallery, New Plymouth. A 1947 drawing The Three Marys at the Tomb, given to the Hocken in 2020 by former University of Otago academic Dr Gary Blackman, is also included in the current exhibition.
