Mark Adams

About the Author

Dr Sarah Farrar is head of curatorial and learning at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. She is a curator and art historian whose research focuses on contemporary art, curatorial activism and the complexities of cross-cultural exchange. Her recent curatorial projects include the exhibition Taimoana | Coastlines: Art in Aotearoa, with Cameron Ah Loo-Matamua, Dr Jane Davidson-Ladd and Nathan Pōhio, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, 2024–26; and the retrospective exhibition Robin White: Te Whanaketanga | Something Is Happening Here, co-curated with Dr Nina Tonga, an Auckland Art Gallery nationally touring exhibition project with Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, 2022–23. Farrar’s publication Robin White: Something Is Happening Here, co-edited with Jill Trevelyan and Dr Nina Tonga, was a finalist in the 2023 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.

Mark Adams was born in Linwood, Ōtautahi Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand, in 1949. He studied at Ilam School of Fine Arts, University of Christchurch (graduating in 1970), where he taught himself large-format analogue photography. Since then, he has photographed all over the country focusing on the cultural convergences of postcolonial Aotearoa New Zealand, its landscapes and its people. He is notable for his groundbreaking work photographing Samoan tatau practices and revisiting sites of historical importance in Aotearoa New Zealand. Adams has been the recipient of several residencies and awards, including the Southland Art Foundation Artist in Residence in 1997; the Leverhulme Artist in Residence at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, and the Marti Friedlander Photographic Award, both in 2009. His work has also been the subject of a number of publications, including Tatau: Samoan Tattoo, New Zealand Art, Global Culture, published by Te Papa Press in 2010 and reissued in a new edition in 2023. Adams lives and works in Oxford, Te Waipounamu, and Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland.