| Abstract: | Representations provide an accessible and challenging means of investigating the cultural landscape. While on the one hand images can be read as simple depictions or denotations of landscape, on the other they are rich in meaning, encapsulating a community's idealized vision of itself. The way in which a particular body of popular art—New Zealand's telephone book covers—conveys both 'real' and 'imagined' views of landscape is explored. These images privilege certain ideas about identity, with the selective visual language expressing a range of myths about the relationships between culture and landscape. The populist nature of these works holds a mirror up to society's values, and at the same time projects these ideals onto society, through the high public profile of the images. |
