Lunchtime talks: Dr Mike Joy, Dr Arini Loader

Lunchtime Talk:
Dr Mike Joy
Friday 27 September, 12pm
Adam Art Gallery Te Pātaka Toi

In this lunchtime talk, freshwater ecologist Dr Mike Joy discusses the degradation of New Zealand waterways, one of the ‘disrupted ecologies’ Joyce Campbell depicts in our our current exhibition On the Last Afternoon. Outlining the ways commercial fishing, irrigation pumps, and nitrate-fueled algal blooms negatively affect freshwater and the endemic life within it, Joy argues for a reversal of current environmental practices. The fate of the threatened longfin eel that features prominently in Campbell and Richard Niania’s Te Taniwha series is symbolic of the vulnerability of these ecosystems, and is just one of the reasons Joy advocates for cleaner waterways.

Dr Mike Joy has a PhD in Ecology and is currently Senior Researcher in the School of Government, Victoria University of Wellington. For the past twenty years Joy has addressed the issue of freshwater pollution and urged for a reduction in dairy intensification—confronting unsustainable farming practices and its incentivisation through Government subsidies. He has also developed bio-assessment tools used by regional councils and published scientific papers in various fields, from artificial intelligence to the freshwater ecology of sub-Antarctic islands. His efforts to bring about a better-functioning relationship between legislative policy, scientific research and environmentalism is exemplified in his 2015 BWB Text, Polluted Inheritance New Zealand's Freshwater Crisis.

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Lunchtime Talk
Dr Arini Loader
'Māori Historical Methodologies'
11 October, 12pm
Adam Art Gallery Te Pātaka Toi

For the final talk in this lunchtime talk series, Dr Arini Loader (Ngāti Raukawa) introduces areas of her research which overlap with the historical period of Te Kooti Ārikirangi Te Turuki (1832–1893), whose manuscript is currently on display at Adam Art Gallery Te Pātaka Toi.

Loader introduces her current project with fellow researcher Mike Ross, Ngā Waiata a ngā Herehere, which examines a manuscript comprising some 230 waiata written by prisoners from the battle of Rangiriri in the New Zealand Wars. Her talk provides an overview of the specifically Māori historical methods involved in this research, including her approach to researching whakapapa, moteatea and manuscripts.

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