Heritage et AL

Auckland’s popular lesbian and gay Hero Parade debuted along Queen Street in 1994. Around 10,000 spectators enjoyed the mardi gras-style floats and costumes including drag acts, leather men in jockstraps, and a couple writhing suggestively in a large see-through balloon. However, not everyone was happy. Deputy Mayor David Hay was outraged to have bare-breasted women and transvestites in the main street. “It’s not what the silent majority want to see in our city,” he said. Not everyone in the gay and lesbian community was happy with the parade’s sexually explicit content, either. The Gaily Normal group formed to encourage a more inclusive view. Spokesman Neil Stephenson wanted to see more intimacy presented in future. “[The] general public see us as sexual creatures flaunting sex, but really we aren’t. We are just average people and what we do behind closed doors is our business,” he said. Ref: Julia Durkin. A scene from the final practice for the Marching Boys outside the Hero Wo...

Vojtěch Kubašta was an important designer and illustrator of pop-up books in the twentieth century. His pop-up versions of 'Snow White', 'Cinderella', and 'A Christmas Tale' were displayed in 'Playful pop-up books', a Heritage Collections exhibition held at the Central City Library between 12 December 2018 and 3 March 2019. Ref: Vojtěch Kubašta. A Christmas Tale. London: Bancroft, 1950s. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections. Kubašta was born in Vienna in 1914, but he lived in Prague for most of his life. He wanted to become an artist from a young age. To please his father, he studied architecture and civil engineering at university instead. However, he only worked as an architect for a short time, and from the early 1940s worked instead as a commercial artist and book designer. Ref: Vojtěch Kubašta in his home town of Prague. The publishing industry in Czechoslovakia was nationalised by the communist government in 1948; censorship bec...