In the 1970s and 1980s, Ashley Riwai Mokena (Ngāti Te Whiti, Taranaki, Te Atiawa) took many photographs of his ‘family & friends’ (the book’s working title) – both in the informal situations of their daily lives and more formal portraits and studies.
He has chosen more than 300 photographs for this book. They are of people who, mostly, belonged to groups that were, in those decades, ‘fringe’ or ‘marginal’ to mainstream New Zealand society – urban Māori, gays and transgender people. Many are members of his extended family. The book provides a fascinating tangible record of their lives and has human as well as artistic and sociological worth. The people range in age from new-born infants to kaumātua. Most of the photos were taken in Canterbury (Christchurch, Springston, Selwyn Huts and Arthur’s Pass) but some in Wellington and a few in London.
A remarkable collection of photographs of pictorial, human and social interest.