The New Zealand landscape is dramatic and varied - a mecca for film makers these days, but long before them, for painters. But it's not just the beautiful beaches, rugged mountains and lush forests. It's also New Zealanders' often complicated relationship to the land that many artists have tried to capture. Te Papa has been rifling through its extensive art collection to look at just this in an exhibition called Hiahia Whenua: Landscape and Desire. Rebecca Rice, Curator Historical NZ Art, and Megan Tamati-Quennell, Curator Modern & Contemporary Maori & Indigenous Art, have collaborated on the exhibition. They have chosen early idyllic landscapes from the colonial period, and put them alongside contemporary works. As they explain to Lynn Freeman, landscapes in art have fallen in and out of fashion over the centuries. So why do they still have a place in our hearts? Hiahia Whenua: Landscape and Desire opens at Toi Art at Te Papa in Te Whanganui a Tara on Saturday (Saturday 8 October)