Photographer Stuart Mackenzie is the Edge of Humanity Magazine contributor of this photo essay. From the project ‘Lost in Erewhon (Life in New Zealand)’. To see Stuart’s body of work, click on any photograph.

Erewhon, an anagram for Nowhere, is the novel published in 1872 by one of New Zealand’s early European settlers and famous literary luminaries, Samuel Butler.

I also came to “the land of opportunity” in the late 1960s, emigrating from Scotland with my parents and two younger brothers. Although Great Britain and New Zealand had been described as being similar, the culture shock for me was still huge. The isolation and low population made “Nowhere” a very apt description.

In the mid-1970s I became very interested in the work of William Egglestone, Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, and other art photographers of the day.

I related to their vision as an observer of a society that purported to be normal, but in reality, was anything but.

“Nowhere” can be anywhere. Human beings try to find meaning in their lives by creating their own illusion, or believing in someone else’s, with sometimes bizarre, humorous, or surreal consequences.