Before I Went Blind

In this pithy and provocative address from Going West 2005, award winning novelist, writer of Tarzan Presley, essayist and renowned museum practitioner Nigel Cox reflects on a New Zealand seen through refreshed eyes.

Cox had just spent 5 years away in Berlin, where he and Te Papa colleague Ken Gorbey oversaw the creation of the Jewish Museum.

In his address, Nigel reflects on New Zealand as he saw it on his return and before he went blind to the things he was noticing, before sameness set in.  

He talks of the spooky business of national pride and asks, ‘Have we arrived, New Zealand, at the place we were going to?’ 

Ten months after this address Nigel Cox died.  Friends at Victoria University noted that his influence on the intellectual life of the nation was immense and that Aotearoa had lost an inspiring, generous, innovative and gifted New Zealander far too early.