Anna Jacoba (Ans) Westra (1936-2023)

He kanohi kitea, he hokinga mahara | To see a face is to stir the memory

Ans Westra's generosity — Mark Strange

We are enormously enriched by Ans Westra’s images and enduringly grateful for her foresight and generosity in donating her work to the country. Her collection of tens of thousands of film negatives and printed proof sheets (PA-Group-00941) is one of the largest by a single photographer in the Turnbull collection.

To ensure their preservation and long-term access, Ans began donating them to the Library in the early 1980s, and working with Library curators, continued making subsequent donations. This arrangement was the first time the Library had received a collection from a living photographer who continued to use it while in the Library’s care.

Ans created her film images with a Rolliflex camera, which she operated from waist height, avoiding direct eye contact at the moments her images were made. The cameras had excellent lenses with manual control over the focus and exposure, producing professional-quality negatives with excellent resolution of detail. She processed her black and white film in her darkroom.

In 2019, she worked with me on a method and a choice of chemistry for processing a cache of more than 80 films that she had found — forgotten from thirty years earlier. Her friend, the photographer Max Oettli processed those films.

In 2013, the Library partnered with Ans and her agent Suite Tirohanga Limited on a collaborative project to digitise all her work. Digitisation enables greater access to the collection while reducing the handling of her original films and contact prints. The originals are housed in purpose-built, precisely controlled storage environments for photographic materials, preserving the collection for future generations.

Her originals are now owned by the Library and accessible through the Library catalogues and website. Copyright remains with Ans Westra, and Suite manages use, including requests for prints and reproductions. Digitisation in the Library is normally managed by an in-house team, but the scale of Ans’ collection required a special project with additional imaging technicians, and the project took more than two years.

Photographs of Māori performance — Paul Diamond

Pukana: Moments in Maori Performance, was the first of two exhibitions marking the centenary of the Alexander Turnbull Library. Pūkana opened at the National Library Gallery in September 2019 and as Pūkana: Te Karu o te Ika, at Aratoi Wairarapa Museum of Art and History in 2021.

Pūkana presented awe-inspiring Māori performances across time — from origin stories, right up to today’s young performers taking the world by storm. Ariana Tikao, Vicki-Anne Heikell and I co-curated the exhibition. As we researched the Turnbull Library collections, we were struck by Ans' photos capturing moments in Māori performance. We decided to honour Ans' work, by devoting a section of the exhibition to her. Ans welcomed our interest and understood what we were trying to do. She suggested images from her collection, and sent an email which became part of the text:

‘I would love to see this exhibition dance; make people smile. I feel that we need that just now. All that talent amongst Maori .... let's celebrate.’ [email from Ans Westra to Paul Diamond, 2 July 2019]

A slideshow of images taken by Ans was projected onto the gallery wall. Ans’ sister Yvonne Westra helped with digitisation and preparing files for the exhibition. We decided to focus on two images which have become well-known.

In 1963 Ans visited the primary school in Whatatutu, north of Gisborne and photographed children performing in an impromptu band. The same year, Ans was at the annual hui at Turangawaewae Marae, making the Coronation of the Māori King Korokī and captured the moment when kuia performed the kopikopi dance, in between the formalities, accompanied by a harmonica.

Yvonne made two prints of these images, and visitors were also able to see enlargements of the proof sheets for the photos, created by exhibition designer Neil Pardington.

Finally, the original proof sheets, made by Ans when she donated the collection, were displayed in a case. The proof sheets showed the sequence of images taken by Ans, testament to her skill as an observer of what was happening. Taking photographs on film, with a limited number of frames, we marvelled at how Ans managed to take consistently good images.

Yvonne also made prints of Hone Tuwhare, Selwyn Muru, and Tuini Ngawai performing with Te Hokowhitu a Tu, for other sections of the exhibition. Ans generously donated these prints (PAColl-10770) to the Turnbull Library at the end of the exhibition.

More recently, some of the Turnbull Library curators visited the Dowse Art Museum to see Time Capsule: Ans Westra in the Hutt, an exhibition revisiting Ans’ residency with the Dowse ‘that enabled her to roam the streets of Te Awakairangi between the city centre, Petone and Naenae and take photos to capture a sense of our communities here.’

The exhibition images were also produced as billboards in Naenae, in the locations where they were taken. This clever curation was another opportunity for us to reflect on Ans’ skill as a photographer, and her generosity, leaving a tremendous legacy for researchers who can consult her collection at the Turnbull Library.

Ans Westra at the Library

View the Ans Westra collection

Listen to a talk about Ans Westra and the Pūkana exhibition