The Maniototo is a region made of plains and mountains in the South Island of New Zealand. As names go, through to the early 1900s the Maniototo used to be known as Central Otago, during which modern day Central Otago (Cromwell, Queenstown, Wanaka, …) was known as The Interior.

A rough map was made in 1852, with …

Normalised language is loose convention across prose, narrative form, formality, and conciseness in text we write. Academic papers, professional writing, advertising, group chats, and workplace chats all have different forms of normalisation. Texts can also be normalised by the way they look – if you see a two-column LaTeX document your mind recognises that it’s an academic paper before you’ve even read a word.

In Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More, Alexei Yurchak …

It’s the middle of summer and the golden tussock has overtaken its shorter agricultural cousin. Back down the Manuherikia Valley, bands of green grass run up the sides of the Dunstan Range. Productive Land they call it. Indeed it is, but visually that splash of green is at odds with the golden …

St Bathans is a small town in the Maniototo with a history of gold mining. On a recent trip there I was reading a run-of-the-mill information board and noticed the photograph accompanying it. It was unexpectedly large and incredibly detailed for such an old image. Tagged in the corner was Burton Bros – a photography …