Captain James Cook, Journal entry Monday 15th January 1770
…the Shore seems to form several Bays, into one of which I intend to go with the Ship in order to Careen her (she being very foul) and to repair few defects, recrute our stock of Wood, Water, etc. With this View we Keept plying on and off all Night, having from 80 to 63 fathoms of water. At daylight Stood for an Inlet which runs in S.W. ….
Tuesday 16th At 1pm hauled close round the s.w. end of the Island on which stands the Village …the inhabitants of which were all in arms. At 2 o’Clock we anchored in a very Snug Cove, which is on the N.W. side of the Bay…
This place was Meretoto, which Cook named Ship Cove, in Tōtaranui (Queen Charlotte Sound) at the northern end of Te Wai Pounamu, South Island. It was a place of encounters between Māori and Pākehā; of consternation, conflict, fascination, exchanges, respite and refreshment. Returned to several times over the course of Cook’s three voyages, a total of 162 days were spent by crews of the Endeavour, Resolution, Adventure and Discovery in Tōtaranui Queen Charlotte Sound between January 1770 and February 1777.
The Suter Art Gallery once held in its collection an oil painting of Ship Cove by John Webber RA (1751-93), Admiralty artist for the third voyage (1776-80). It depicts the Resolution’s astronomical tents, Maori fishing, waka, crew of the Resolution and Discovery, and the two ships standing out at sea in February 1777, and has become the ‘received’ image of events in Ship Cove. Sold controversially to Te Papa in 1991, the painting has been referenced by several artists for this exhibition, interrogating its narrative and questioning its idealised viewpoint.
Other works range from recreations of Cook’s impressions of the landscapes viewed from the sea, and the resonance of those encounters of exploration, exploitation, imperialism, colonisation into the 21st century.
Six of the eleven artists represented in this exhibition have been participants in the Meretoto/Ship Cove project facilitated by Barbara Speedy of The Diversion Gallery in Picton, where artists have been given the opportunity to visit and respond to Meretoto, the place of the most sustained contact between Māori and Cook and those that accompanied his expeditions.
ARTISTS: Graham Bennett, Nigel Brown, Sally Burton, Barry Cleavin, Kim Ireland, Peter Ireland, Neil Pardington, Clyde Scott, Michel Tuffery, John Walsh, Wayne Youle
John Walsh (b. 1954 Tolaga Bay, lives in Wellington) Aitanga a Hauiti, New Zealand Irish, Mythical Creatures (contact), 2017/19, oils on stretched canvas. Courtesy of the artist and The Diversion Gallery, Picton.
