Heritage et AL

Back in 1989 and 1990 the Auckland Public Library commissioned two projects to mark the national sesquicentenary a.k.a. 150 years since 1840 when Te Tiriti o Waitangi was signed and recognised as our founding document. This documentary initiative was named 'The 1990 Project', and aimed to record the look and feel of Auckland through oral history and documentary photography.  Image: Stuart Page. Carefully pruned trees, Panmure, 1989. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, 273-PAG005-06 . The oral histories focus on eastern suburbs, Glen Innes, and Panmure and were recorded from 1989 through to 1992. Originally recorded on cassette, these interviews have been digitised and are described on Kura Heritage Collections Online . Some of the audio is online: you can hear the  Rev Leiite Setefano talk about travelling from Samoa to Wellington , and  Aneta Jean Hart's account of moving from rural Taranaki to Auckland . In a HeritageTalk recorded during lockdown in April 2020...

Detail of Trickle Down , watercolour on Fabriano Watercolour paper 300gm, full work is 4200 x 1500mm. Sonja Drake’s exhibition Ecotones features watercolours, prints and artists books inspired by her explorations of Wairau Creek’s history and ecosystem. The exhibition first opened last year in the Angela Morton Room at Takapuna Library - but closed a week later when the country when into lockdown. We are thrilled to hold an encore for Ecotones, now on show in the Angela Morton Room until 10 August. Sonja has been drawing water samples from local waterways, testing the water, tracking temperature, weather and tidal effects, and sketching, on her walks along Wairau Creek, as she has sought to understand the shifting and fluid nature of this ecosystem where urban and natural worlds meet.  Being immersed in the physicality of the site means she has been able to reflect on what is valued and what is precious. She has also studied the history of the stream from the recent colonial time, ...