This image is from eco-Tourism, a project I began in 1994. Focusing on four sites of culture – high cultural institutions, consumer institutions, tourist sites, the landscape and environment – this body of work maps out cultural display strategies found in New Zealand, and explores larger questions around photography as a discipline – its documentation of, and participation in, spectacle. I photographed landscapes using an aesthetic approach that referenced photographs in nearby museum and gallery collections. In this sense eco-Tourism is a dual project: about relationships between attractions and money (the tourism industry), and about the history of photography and the way our country has been imaged over two centuries.

Haru Sameshima is an Auckland-based photographer, publisher and occasional writer, and part-time teacher of photography in tertiary art schools. On-going photographic projects include ‘eco-Tourism’ and ‘Souvenir’, a series exploring international tourist sites. His work has been widely published and exhibited in New Zealand and overseas.