Research Focus

The unrecognized historical story of Whitcombe and Tombs, a publishing company originating from New Zealand, cannot be reduced to a straight timeline, a past to a present. Through historical documents, stories, and artefacts, we will showcase their trans-Tasman journey from New Zealand to Australia, highlighting their contributions to Australia’s education system and the generational impact and connections they have established across the country.

Exhibition Experience

To achieve this, we encourage our audience to immerse themselves in the history by becoming part of the exhibition, observing and reflecting on the relational cultural and historical content of Whitcombe and Tombs. Our curatorial material explores the connections between images, spaces (such as bookshops) and historical moments.  We hope our audiences will bring their own experiences of learning, reading and love for history and books when engaging with our artwork.  As curators and designers, we want our audience to co-create meaning and build resonance between the contemporary lens and the historical context.

As a trio of design students interested in architecture, philosophy and relationality we combined our interests to explore our chosen question ‘How did the images of Whitcombe and Tomb’s books reach the classroom?’. The more we dove into our research the more layers we uncovered.