Latest news with #Westra
NZ Herald
06-05-2025
- General
- NZ Herald
Exhibition organisers hope to identify people in Ans Westra photos
She is best known for her work documenting the lives of rural Māori, but her vast archive forms an unmatched record of everyday life in her adopted home during the second half of the 20th century. These days Westra's archive is managed by her daughter Lisa van Hulst, the middle child of three, and Wellington gallery owner David Alsop. Alsop said one of the aims of the show, like a similar exhibition in Wellington last year, was to connect with people in the images. He hoped visitors would recognise friends or relatives, or possibly even themselves, and share names and stories so they could be added to the National Library's records. 'Part of the purpose is to try and gather more information about the people in the photographs, and reach out to whānau connected to the images … Ans' process didn't involve gathering people's names or anything as she went. 'She moved quite quickly and quite freely. So the idea now of her daughter and I is to connect with the people in the photographs, and further complete the meaning of the images.' Alsop said any information people provided would be invaluable to future researchers or whānau interested in a particular person or event. 'So that's what we're increasingly trying to do … It's to let people know they can do this, and if they do, it becomes a better, more interesting, more significant historical archive for everybody who accesses it.' Alsop said Westra was a frequent visitor to Northland. She had close friends in Te Kao and Kaitāia, travelled regularly to Hikurangi, just north of Whangārei, and was a regular at Waitangi Day commemorations in the Bay of Islands. The earliest photo in the exhibition was taken in 1963; the latest dated to the mid-1980s. Alsop said Westra's archive was so vast he still did not know exactly how many images were in it. 'It is very, very big. The actual grand total number, we don't know yet, because there's still quite a lot of cataloguing to do.' Work to digitise the archive, and upload the images to the National Library's website to make them freely available to all, started in 2014. So far about 80,000 negatives had been digitised with an estimated 70,000 to go. Another 170,000 or so digital images taken since the 2000s did not have to be scanned, but still needed to be captioned and catalogued. Alsop said he first met Westra at an exhibition of her work in Leiden, the city midway between Amsterdam and The Hague where she was born in 1936. They struck up a firm friendship and their families became closely intertwined. Alsop said Westra's contribution to New Zealand photography was 'unparalleled and extremely significant'. 'The breadth, the consistency, the empathy, the beauty of her photographs show us a glimpse of what it might have been like to be a New Zealander at a particular time and in a particular place … there's no other record so important and so far-reaching for the second half of the 20th century.' Alsop said Westra had no predetermined ideas about what she was trying to capture. 'She was very honest with what she did, and really just captured people as they went about their lives. Her objectivity, through not being New Zealand-born, probably helped.' Some of her work was controversial at the time – a publication for distribution to schools, called Washday at the Pa, was withdrawn in 1964 and most copies were pulped – but now her photos were widely admired. 'We're getting a lot of amazing feedback. People are generally really pleased with what Ans did. She can't see that now, but I know she'd be happy to know that we're talking about her work, and that her legacy is being honoured like this.' Westra was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 1998. She died in Wellington, aged 86, in 2023. Ans Westra: Kerikeri 2025 is on at the Theatre Bar at the Turner Centre, Cobham Rd, Kerikeri. The free exhibition will be open on weekdays and during events throughout May. Thousands of her images can also be viewed on the National Library website.
RNZ News
04-05-2025
- Entertainment
- RNZ News
Ans Westra exhibition organisers hope to identify people in her photos
Ans Westra, Hīkoi, Waitangi, 1984. Photo: Courtesy of Suite Ans Westra, Hīkoi, Waitangi, 1984. Who are the people in the photos? That's the question organisers of an exhibition by the acclaimed photographer Ans Westra are hoping visitors will be able to answer. Ans Westra: Kerikeri 2025 -an exhibition of mostly Northland images, including some never before shown in public - opens on Monday, 5 May, at the Turner Centre in Kerikeri. It's part of an ongoing project to gather more information about the estimated 320,000 photos taken by the Dutch-born Westra, from her arrival in Aotearoa in 1957 until her death two years ago . She is best known for her work documenting the lives of rural Māori, but her vast archive forms an unmatched record of everyday life in her adopted home during the second half of the 20th century. Ans Westra, Te Kao, 1983. Photo: Courtesy of Suite These days Westra's archive is managed by her daughter Lisa van Hulst, the middle child of three, and Wellington gallery owner David Alsop. Alsop said one of the aims of the show, like a similar exhibition in Wellington last year, was to connect with people in the images. He hoped visitors would recognise friends or relatives, or possibly even themselves, and share names and stories so they could be added to the National Library's records. "Part of the purpose is to try and gather more information about the people in the photographs, and reach out to whānau connected to the images … Ans' process didn't involve gathering people's names or anything as she went. She moved quite quickly and quite freely. So the idea now of her daughter and I is to connect with the people in the photographs, and further complete the meaning of the images." Alsop said any information people provided would be invaluable to future researchers or whānau interested in a particular person or event. "So that's what we're increasingly trying to do … It's to let people know they can do this, and if they do, it becomes a better, more interesting, more significant historical archive for everybody who accesses it." Ans Westra, Kawakawa, 1963. Photo: Courtesy of Suite Ans Westra, Kawakawa, 1963. Alsop said Westra was a frequent visitor to Northland. She had close friends in Te Kao and Kaitāia, travelled regularly to Hikurangi, just north of Whangārei, and was a regular at Waitangi Day commemorations in the Bay of Islands. The earliest photo in the exhibition was taken in 1963; the latest dated to the mid-1980s. Alsop said Westra's archive was so vast he still did not know exactly how many images were in it. "It is very, very big. The actual grand total number, we don't know yet, because there's still quite a lot of cataloguing to do." Work to digitise the archive, and upload the images to the National Library's website to make them freely available to all, started in 2014. So far about 80,000 negatives had been digitised with an estimated 70,000 to go. Another 170,000 or so digital images taken since the 2000s did not have to be scanned, but still needed to be captioned and catalogued. Ans Westra, Te Tii Marae, Waitangi, 1982. Photo: Courtesy of Suite Alsop said he first met Westra at an exhibition of her work in Leiden, the city midway between Amsterdam and The Hague where she was born in 1936. They struck up a firm friendship and their families became closely intertwined. Alsop said Westra's contribution to New Zealand photography was "unparalleled and extremely significant". "The breadth, the consistency, the empathy, the beauty of her photographs show us a glimpse of what it might have been like to be a New Zealander at a particular time and in a particular place … there's no other record so important and so far-reaching for the second half of the 20th century." Alsop said Westra had no predetermined ideas about what she was trying to capture. "She was very honest with what she did, and really just captured people as they went about their lives. Her objectivity, through not being New Zealand-born, probably helped." Ans Westra, Hikurangi, 1982. Photo: Courtesy of Suite Some of her work was controversial at the time - a publication for distribution to schools, called Washday at the Pa , was withdrawn in 1964 and most copies were pulped - but now her photos were widely admired. "We're getting a lot of amazing feedback. People are generally really pleased with what Ans did. She can't see that now, but I know she'd be happy to know that we're talking about her work, and that her legacy is being honoured like this." Westra was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 1998. She died in Wellington, aged 86, in 2023. Ans Westra: Kerikeri 2025 opens at 5pm on 5 May in the Theatre Bar at the Turner Centre, Cobham Road, Kerikeri. The free exhibition will be open on weekdays and during events throughout May. Thousands of her images can also be viewed on the National Library website . Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Flowers that last forever
HULL, I.A. (KELO) — From Valentine's Day gifts to wedding bouquets, flowers can often hold a lot of memories. There's one problem though — flowers wilt and die. But what if you could have flowers that never die? Or you could recreate a special bouquet from years ago? On a farm just outside of Hull, Iowa, there sits a workshop and inside you'll find shelves filled with flowers but the lady behind the desk isn't your traditional florist. 'My flowers in the house always die. I cannot keep them alive,' Christiana Westra, owner of C Anna's Things, said. But that's okay because these flowers can't die. They are made out of wood. The wood used to make the flowers comes from tapioca roots found in tropical climates. And they don't feel like the wood many of us around here are used to, instead, they have an almost foam-like texture. For Rhoden, Venhuizen: A week of making history 'They look so realistic that people always say, 'oh really, those aren't real, they're wood?' So that's fun too,' Westra said. Christiana Westra first learned about non-traditional flowers like these when she was planning her own wedding. 'I was looking at real flowers and was like, wow they're expensive and you don't get a whole lot for them. I started looking into other options and ended up doing my own silk flowers back then and then after that I learned about wood flowers and was like, oh my, I have to get these and play with these,' Westra said. She then started making wood flower bouquets for friends and family. 'And then we actually found out that the painting of the flowers was calming for our son who has special needs,' Westra said. 'That's when we started doing the business part.' Seven years ago she started C Anna's Things. 'Right now I'm just painting them. Taking them and painting them. I do a lot of custom work,' Westra said. 'I would say probably 75 to 80 percent of my work is all custom.' That includes wedding bouquets. 'I absolutely love them. They are so much better than the inspo picture,' bride-to-be Samantha Taylor said. 'I love that she was able to take my three favorite flowers and turn them into a very cohesive bouquet.' Samantha Taylor met Westra at the Sidewalks Art Festival in Sioux Falls this past summer and knew she wanted Westra to bring her wedding dreams to life. 'I was really trying to cut back on the money spending and this way it also lasts forever,' Taylor said. 'You don't have to try to preserve it in a special way.' For Taylor, Westra helped create lasting memories. But she can also help bring back memories by recreating special bouquets from the past. 'I am highly sentimental so when somebody brings me something special that they've had or loved at their wedding or some other time in their life, that's just really special to be able to recreate that memory for them and kind of bring it back to life,' Westra said. 'We've shed tears together, customers and I have, because of just how special those kinds of things are for people.' In the past, Westra has taken the tapioca wood and formed it into flowers herself but because of high demand and the busyness of her family's farm, right now she is just getting them pre-made and then she customizes them. To see more of her work, you can stop into her workshop in Hull or check out her website. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
