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Ans Westra

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Ans Westra
CNZM
Westra in 2000
Born
Anna Jacoba Westra

(1936-04-28)28 April 1936
Leiden, Netherlands
Died26 February 2023(2023-02-26) (aged 86)
Wellington, New Zealand
NationalityNew Zealander
Notable workWashday at the Pa (1964)

Anna Jacoba Westra CNZM (28 April 1936 – 26 February 2023), known as Ans Westra, was a Dutch-born New Zealand photographer, well known for her depictions of Māori life in the 20th century. Her prominence as an artist was amplified by her controversial 1964 children's book Washday at the Pa.[1]

Early life

Westra was born in 1936 in Leiden, Netherlands, the only child of Pieter Hein Westra and Hendrika Christina van Doorn.[2]

In 1953, Westra moved to Rotterdam and began study at the Industrieschool voor Meisjes. She graduated in 1957 with a diploma in arts and craft teaching, specialising in artistic needlework,[2] and the same year, she left the Netherlands for New Zealand. She became a naturalised New Zealand citizen in 1963.[3]

Career

Initial interest in photography

Westra was exposed to photography as a teenager by her stepfather.[4] A visit in 1956 to the international exhibition The Family of Man in Amsterdam, together with a book by Joan van der Keukens, Wij Zijn 17 (We Are Seventeen), inspired Westra's first photographic documentation, which featured her fellow students.[5]

Her obsession with capturing the world through a camera was instilled after encountering the famous Family of Man exhibition in Amsterdam. This utopian, quasi-anthropological exhibition, curated by MoMA’s Edward Steichen, toured the world from 1955 to 1963, and was a major influence on Westra’s work, as was precocious teenager Joan van der Keuken’s 1955 photobook Wij Zijn 17 (We Are 17), which depicts the lives of post-war Dutch youth.

In 1957, Westra travelled to New Zealand to visit her father who had earlier immigrated. She stayed in Auckland and worked for eight months at Crown Lynn Potteries.

Wellington and professional photography

In 1958, Westra moved to Wellington, where she joined the Wellington Camera Club and worked in various local photographic studios.[6] In 1960, Westra received international recognition winning a prize from the UK Photography magazine for her work entitled Assignment No. 2.[5] That same year Westra had her first photograph published in New Zealand on the cover of Te Ao Hou / The New World, a magazine published by the Department of Maori Affairs.[7] In 1962 she began working as a full-time, freelance documentary photographer. Much of her early work was for the School Publications Branch of the Department of Education and Te Ao Hou.[2]

Washday at the Pa and broader recognition

Westra lived with rural Māori for five months, photographing typical daily life, and in 1964 her school bulletin Washday at the Pa was published by the school publications section of the Department of Education and distributed to primary school classrooms throughout New Zealand. The book documents a large Māori family at their rural home in Ruatoria. The family was given the fictitious name "Wereta", and listed as living "near Taihape" to protect their identities.

The living conditions of the family were seen as poor and their rural cottage rundown. Concerns were raised, including by the Māori Women's Welfare League, that the depiction of the Weretas would lead readers—impressionable children—to see the family as representative of all Māori. The league requested its withdrawal from schools, and soon after its release the journal was withdrawn by order of the Minister of Education at the request of the league.[8]

Later in 1964 Washday at the Pa was republished privately by the Caxton Press, with 20 additional photographs.[2] An article written by academics in Auckland in 2016 about this event states: "In a way the book, and the feelings it inspired, appealed strongly to Pākehā ideas of Māori, more so than it reflected some important truth about Māori themselves."[9]

In 1967 Maori was published with photography by Westra and text by James Ritchie.[2]

In 1982 an archive of Westra's negatives was established at the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington.[2] In the late 1980s and 1990s, Westra undertook several artist-in-residences including at the Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt (1988–89), the Tylee Cottage Residency, Wanganui (1993) and in 1996, she was awarded the inaugural Southland Art Foundation Artist in Residence award by Southland Art Foundation, Southern Institute of Technology, Southland Museum and Art Gallery and Creative New Zealand. In 1998 Westra was artist-in-residence at the Otago School of Fine Arts, Otago Polytechnic.[2]

Westra was the subject of the 2006 documentary Ans Westra: Private Journeys/Public Thoughts by Luit Bieringa.[10]

Westra's 2009 book and exhibition, The Crescent Moon: The Asian Face of Islam in New Zealand features her own photographs, with text by New Zealand writer Adrienne Jansen. The book's interviews and photographs of 37 individuals give insights into the lives of Asian Muslims in New Zealand.[11]

Washday at the Pa was reissued in 2011 by Suite Publishing to include other photos of the same family taken in 1998.[12]

In May 2013, Suite Publishing released Westra's publication: Our Future: Ngā Tau ki Muri, which includes 137 often damning photographs of the New Zealand landscape, with text contributions from Hone Tuwhare, Russel Norman, Brian Turner, David Eggleton and David Lange.

Between February 2013 and April 2014, Westra undertook her Full Circle Tour to revisit centres where she had been particularly active during her career. She visited Ruatoria, Ruatoki, Rotorua, the Whanganui River, Kaitaia, Invercargill and Stewart Island.

In 2014, the digitization of Westra's archive of negatives held at the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, came into effect through her representative, Suite Tirohanga.

Westra's print Untitled, from Washday at the Pa, 1963, set a new auction record price at NZ$10,575 at Webb's in Auckland, New Zealand, on 11 June 2015.

Westra Museum

On 20 April 2016 a museum in Wellington was established, dedicated to Westra's work.[13]

Criticism

Westra faced criticism for her ownership of her images of Māori, that she built her career on images of Māori and that the subjects and their relations are not able to use the photographs without asking Westra for permission. The content being through a Pākehā gaze is also criticised including the controversy of Washday at the Pa.[8][14][15]

Personal life and death

In 1965 Westra returned to the Netherlands to live until 1969.[2] She had three children.[2]

Westra was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and later in life developed dementia.[16] She died at her home in Wellington on 26 February 2023, at the age of 86.[17]

Honours and awards

Westra received a Certificate of Excellence from the New York World’s Fair photographic exhibition in 1964–1965.[2] Westra was the Pacific regional winner of the Commonwealth Photography Award in 1986, travelling to the Philippines to photograph and then onwards to the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and America.[18] In the 1998 Queen's Birthday Honours, Westra was appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to photography,[19] and in 2007 she became an Arts Foundation of New Zealand Icon artist.[5] In 2015, Westra received an honorary doctorate from Massey University in recognition of her long-standing contribution to New Zealand’s visual culture.

References

  1. ^ "Ans Westra". Retrieved 15 November 2016.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Handboek: Ans Westra Photographs, 2004, published by Blair Wakefield Exhibitions
  3. ^ "New Zealand, naturalisations, 1843–1981". Ancestry.com Operations. 2010. Retrieved 5 July 2020.
  4. ^ "The Eye of an Outsider: A Conversation with Ans Westra". Archived from the original on 17 January 2013. Retrieved 16 November 2016.
  5. ^ a b c "The Arts Foundation : Ans Westra - Biography". Archived from the original on 21 August 2014. Retrieved 21 August 2014.
  6. ^ Handboek: Ans Westra Photographs, 2004, published by Blair Wakefield Exhibition
  7. ^ "Biography of Ans Westra (1936-)". Archived from the original on 21 August 2014. Retrieved 16 November 2016.
  8. ^ a b "Washday at the Pa controversy". Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Archived from the original on 22 August 2014. Retrieved 23 May 2021.
  9. ^ Stewart, Georgina (2016). "'Dirty Laundry' in Māori Education History? Another spin for Washday at the Pā". Wilf Malcolm Institute of Educational Research, Division of Education, 2019. Vol 21 No 2 (2016). Waikato Journal of Education Te Hautaka Mātauranga o Waikato. Archived from the original on 6 April 2017. Retrieved 23 May 2021.
  10. ^ Bull, Alastair (10 August 2006). "Coaxing Westra out from behind the lens". New Zealand Herald. Retrieved 2 August 2009.
  11. ^ "The Crescent Moon." Asia New Zealand Foundation. 2009. [1] Archived 2010-05-22 at the Wayback Machine. Accessed 2 March 2009.
  12. ^ Ans Westra’s “Washday At The Pa” Republished. scoop.co.nz. 2011 [last update]. Retrieved 19 October 2011. "{Suite}"
  13. ^ "A living museum for Ans Westra". Radio NZ. 20 April 2016. Retrieved 19 June 2016.
  14. ^ "My Lucky, Unlucky Book by Talia Marshall". Verb Wellington. Retrieved 23 May 2021.
  15. ^ Stewart, Georgina; Dale, Hēmi (26 February 2018). "Reading the 'ghost book': Māori talk about Washday at the Pā, by Ans Westra". Video Journal of Education and Pedagogy. 3 (1): 2. doi:10.1186/s40990-018-0014-2. hdl:10292/12833. ISSN 2364-4583.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  16. ^ Catherall, Sarah (29 November 2019). "At times unwelcome, Ans Westra documented Māori when no one else was". Stuff. Retrieved 26 February 2023.
  17. ^ Gibbs, Tatiana (26 February 2023). "Pioneering photographer Ans Westra dies, aged 86". Stuff. Retrieved 26 February 2023.
  18. ^ "The Arts Foundation : Ans Westra - Biography". Archived from the original on 21 August 2014. Retrieved 21 August 2014.
  19. ^ "Queen's Birthday honours list 1998". Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. 1 June 1998. Retrieved 5 July 2020.
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