Pacific families urged to help put names and stories to Auckland’s historic photographs

Thousands of Pacific family memories could be sitting unidentified in an Auckland Museum archive and the staff want families to help put names and stories to the faces.

The Museum holds about 6500 negatives from Belwood Studios, covering decades of Auckland life including weddings, christenings, graduations, children, church elders and family groups.

Many of the photographs feature Pacific people, with images taken in parts of Auckland where Pacific communities were growing including Karangahape Road, Queen Street, Papatoetoe and Ōtāhuhu.

Dr Wanda Ieremia-Allan, Associate Curator Documentary Heritage Pacific Collections, says the Museum wants to reconnect families with photographs of themselves and their ancestors.

“The vitality of our Pacific people in these photos is not to be missed. The photos are filled with celebrations, ceremonials, rituals, sometimes very private events as well,” she tells William Terite on Pacific Mornings.

“So what we’ve done is taken a small sample, made them available online and invite families to come and have a look and help us identify who they are and tell a much fuller story of Tāmaki Makaurau and its changing demographics.”

Watch Dr Wanda Ieremia-Allen and Dr Andrea Low's full interview below.

For the Museum, the project is also about changing who gets to tell the story of Pacific communities.

Ieremia-Allan says making part of the collection available online is part of the Museum’s due diligence and its “kaitiaki responsibilities” to the communities it serves.

“These are core parts of our histories … we really want people to come and enrich our records and have conversations, and be part of telling Tāmaki stories by Pacific people, for Pacific people,” she says.

A mother and teenage son. Photo/Belwood Studios collection, Auckland Museum. Copyright ownership of some photographs in the Bellwood Studios collection is unknown. The photographs were originally commissioned as private and domestic family and community images.

“It’s really important that we move away from the colonial portrayal of our people as objects, into subjects with our own agency. That’s a core part of us decolonising museum practices.”

The photographs were taken by Amy Harper, who began working as a photographer in the 1920s and continued through to the 1970s.

Dr Andrea Low, Contemporary World Associate Curator, says the collection offers a rare look at how Auckland changed through much of the 20th century.

Low says Harper was also one of few women photographers working at the time and employed other women at her studios across Auckland.

“I think they felt a high level of trust with Amy,” Low tells Terite. “There was a Papatoetoe studio and a K-Road studio, and there are pockets of Tāmaki where a lot of Pacific people were living.

“The fact that they made use of Amy’s studio testifies to her ability to be a good communicator, and you can really see that in the photographs as well.”

Toddler sitting on a rocking horse. Photo/ Belwood Studios collection, Auckland Museum

Auckland Museum says the collection has complex copyright issues, with many photographs commissioned by members of the public and copyright holders not always known.

The Museum says some images were originally taken in private and domestic settings and is considering privacy and consent as it makes the collection publicly accessible.

While it owns the physical negatives, copyright may belong to the people who commissioned the photographs or potentially the studio.

Posed team portrait of seven young women and their male coach. Photo/Belwood Studios collection, Auckland Museum

Ieremia-Allan says the Museum is considering privacy and consent, particularly because some of the images were originally taken as private family records.

Families who recognise themselves, their parents, grandparents or other relatives in the photographs can contact Auckland Museum through its website.

The Museum says by helping identify the people pictured, Pacific families can add names, connections and stories to an archive that offers a window into the communities that helped shape Auckland.