Published 2000 by Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington.
24 pages
297 x 212mm, softcover, with colour illustrations
Organised by Annalee Andres, Esther Burdett, Penelope Campbell, Greg Donson, Catherine Field-Dodgson, Dennis MacManus, Richard O'Rorke with David Maskill.
Designed by Meanest Indian in the Land
ISBN 0-9582167-1-1

Pacific Impressions is the first student-organised exhibition at the Adam Art Gallery. David Maskill, Lecturer in the Department of Art History at Victoria University of Wellington, originated the concept of an exhibition as integral to the Honours paper History of Prints. The students have had the responsibility of researching and writing about a selection of prints.

The prints in the exhibition range from images of 'first contact' to colonial settlement and expansion. From the initial scenes of violence to those of custom and costume, they are witness to a seemingly insatiable demand from European viewers for images of people farthest from their actual experience. Such distance inevitably led to the imposition of European values and ideals on these 'foreign' peoples. In the end, the prints tell us more about Europe than they do about the Pacific. Yet they also stand as some of the most interesting historical artefacts of a period when the great 'unknown' southern lands were finally opened up to the purview of the rest of the world.