Best known for her portrayal of Māori social, cultural and political life, this photographic journey captured by Ans Westra is a challenging and revealing record of the growth of our nation over nearly half a century of change.
Ans Westra Students performing, Whatatutu primary school 1963. Ans Westra Collection, Alexander
Turnbull Library.
Ans Westra Waiwhetu marae opening 1960. Ans Westra Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library
Ans Westra Waiwhetu marae opening1960. Ans Westra Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library
Ans Westra Hone Tuwhare at JK Baxter 's graveside 1972. Ans Westra Collection, Alexander Turnbull
Library.
Ans Westra Freda Cook, Woodbourne Base demonstration 1971. Ans Westra Collection, Alexander
Turnbull Library
Ans Westra Old people's home, London 1989. Ans Westra Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library
Handboek
Ans Westra Photographs
18 February 2006 - 14 May 2006
The comfortable conformity of late 1940s and 1950s New Zealand was forever changed with the post-war arrival of European migrants and the urban shift of Māori. It was a time when Māori and Pākehā had to interact widely for the first time. As a society, New Zealand and its citizens were far from prepared to accommodate the difficulties accompanying such a challenge to their homogenous cultural, social and institutional frameworks.
Ans Westra's arrival in New Zealand in 1957 coincided with that shift, and her life-long record of photographs show how the resultant changes and tensions have continued to characterise our nation’s social and cultural evolution. Handboek comprises a gallery of Ans Westra's most revealing and challenging documentary images, taking us on a remarkable photographic journey of the growth of a nation.
Based on the Alexander Turnbull Library collections and organised by BWX (Blair Wakefield Exhibitions) in association with the National Library Gallery.