April 20, 2016
Washday creator Westra gets own museum
A collection of images of Maori life in the 1960s and beyond have gone on permanent display in Wellington.
They’re in a new museum celebrating the work of Ans Westra, who migrated from the Netherlands in 1957.
She says her interest in Maori was sparked by the contrast of life back in Holland, with Maori children appearing to have much more freedom.
Westra Museum director David Alsop says large parts of Maori life during the 1960s wouldn't have been visually recorded without her.
That included Washday at the Pa, a school journal that was withdrawn after a complaint from the Maori Women’s Welfare League that its depiction of a rural Maori family didn’t show Maori in a good light.
The Westra Museum is above Suite Gallery on Cuba St.
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