Remembering and Forgetting Difficult Histories

Sites of enormous violence can be places of memory embedded in the land, but also of silence and forgetting. The ‘difficult histories’ of the New Zealand Wars are remembered by Māori through many forms – including art and sculpture, while ignored, or at best, mythologised by many Pākehā.

In this talk Professor Joanna Kidman (Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Toa Rangatira) of Victoria University of Wellington and historian Dr Vincent O’Malley examine the role of memory and forgetting in the context of these defining nineteenth-century New Zealand conflicts, drawing on the findings from their Marsden Fund project on these themes.

Signed copies of Vincent’s newly-released book, Voices from the New Zealand Wars/He Reo Nō Ngā Pakanga o Aotearoa (Bridget Williams Books), will also be available.

This is an in-person event but as we have limited capacity under level two it will be live streamed and recorded by Story is King. All bookings will be advised on where to find the livestream and recording. Check back with us for further updates.

Special thanks to Bridget Williams Books.