An Open Book Conversation on Rebecca Priestley's ‘End Times’

In this collaborative event between the Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies and Adam Art Gallery, Su Ballard and Ingrid Horrocks join Rebecca Priestley in discussing Priestley’s new book End Times. Published by Te Herenga Waka University Press, End Times deals with the fear of the end of the world, placing it into an Aotearoa New Zealand scenario of a road trip along the West coast. The encounters on the way and in the past are about climate change, conspiracy theories and very real anxieties around fault lines and earthquakes that might come to haunt us. Priestley asks, where can we find hope when it sometimes feels as if we all live on a fault line that could rupture at any moment?

Rebecca Priestley is a Professor of Science in Society who works at the boundary between science and the humanities. She is trained in earth sciences, history of science, and creative writing and has a research focus on science in New Zealand and Antarctica.

Ingrid Horrocks is a creative writing teacher, poet, travel writer, editor and essayist.

Su Ballard is an art writer and Associate Professor of Art History Tāhuhu Kōrero Toi at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, and curator of Folded Memory.

Image: Nova Paul (Te Uriroroi/Te Parawhau, Ngā Puhi), Rākau (still), 2022, 16mm b/w hand-processed film developed in pūriri leaves, transfer to HD delivered as H.264, 5 mins, 1 sec, looped, Ngā Puhipuhi o Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington Art Collection, purchased 2023.