Amateurs in Wonderland
Tourism, promotional culture, and early amateur tourist-filmmakers' representation of the 'picturesque wonderland,' Rotorua
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Description
This seminar takes a quick tour through a selection of tourist films, both professional and amateur, in order to consider how promotional media may influence the way sightseers view tourist locations and the kinds of images they record.
Through a case study of the "picturesque wonderland" Rotorua, the talk looks at the city's long history as a popular tourist destination. With the combined attributes of geothermal activity, indigenous culture, and modern recreational facilities, the area has frequently been marketed as both exotic and civilised.
By the mid-20th century, many sightseers arrived armed with cameras to record their visit. How did the films recorded by these keen amateurs differ from those made by their professional counterparts?
Not restricted by the ideological and economic imperatives of promotional films, tourist-filmmakers were, in theory, free to record whatever they liked. Yet the ubiquity of exotic playground images of Rotorua ensured visitors were likely to arrive ‘well informed’ about what they would see and how to go about documenting it.
Speaker Bios
Rosina Hickman has a PhD in film from Victoria University of Wellington. Her research investigates the history of amateur film and its archival afterlife in the public sphere. She is also an experimental filmmaker. Her feature film Clear Sky recently screened in festivals in the US and UK. She is currently a learning designer with the Centre for Academic Development.