Shared Baskets – Social Equality in Aotearoa NZ

Weekly Review 143: Miramar, Wellington Opens New Plunket Rooms (NFU, 1944). Part of the Shared Baskets – Social Equality in Aotearoa NZ exhibition.

Listing details: Magic Playgrounds: Historical Images of New Zealand Childhoods exhibition three, Shared Baskets – Social Equality in Aotearoa NZ
When: Exhibition runs September 27 - November 23, 2013
Where: The New Zealand Film Archive, 84 Taranaki St, Wellington
FREE ADMISSION

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Shared Baskets – Social Equality in Aotearoa NZ

The third and final in the Magic Playgrounds series of three moving image exhibitions curated by Tina Makereti, on the social history of childhood in Aotearoa / New Zealand. Shared Baskets explores the interplay between notions of social equality and kiwi childhoods.

Nāu te rourou, nāku te rourou, ka ora ai te iwi If you type “inequality” into the online English-Māori dictionary, zero results are returned.

On the other hand, “equality” or “equal opportunity” is translated as “ōritetanga.” While inequality means different things to different people, and has existed over time in many different situations, this absence of a word for it in Māori is suggestive of New Zealanders’ cultural propensity to insist that ours is a nation that gives everyone a fair go.

Egalitarianism and kiwi independence are things we’ve long been proud of, and we like to think that most kiwis stand on an equal footing with each other. Don’t we have the best race relations in the world? Isn’t it the best place in the world to bring up kids?

The Magic Playgrounds: Historical Images of New Zealand Childhoods series of exhibitions have taken some of our cultural and historical beliefs about ourselves, and tested them against what our archival film collections tell us, particularly in relation to children and childhood in New Zealand. The stories have been surprising, inspiring, sometimes distressing, and often extraordinarily beautiful. This last exhibition takes a serious turn: what happened to the lauded “cradle to the grave” social welfare policies of the twentieth century? When did we decide that welfare is a dirty word? And why do 25% of our children, that is 270,000 tamariki, currently live with unacceptable levels of poverty?

Frankly, when exploring and reflecting on the themes of social equality and childhood in Aotearoa New Zealand, child poverty casts a long shadow over everything else. This issue is the most urgent we face in relation to childhood in Aotearoa. It is therefore the central focus of this third and final exhibition.

Bryan Bruce’s 2011 Inside Child Poverty documentary features on the main screen. This documentary describes the issues and possible solutions clearly, with forthright and shocking demonstrations of just how much our country has changed. New Zealand is now second to last in child health and safety rankings for 30 OECD countries. We rate below average in all key indicators for child wellbeing, where once we would have been well above average. 150 children died last year who would have lived had they been born in Japan, Sweden, or the Czech Republic. The time has long since past when we could afford to feel smug about our standard of living. No longer can we assume that “real poverty” occurs overseas. Our children are dying from poverty related diseases. Those that live may encounter life-long physical, mental and emotional damage.

Surrounding the main feature are smaller screens showing historic films and newsreels documenting the public health, housing, dental service, Plunket and health camp policies that we used to be proud of. Historically, New Zealand led the way in attitudes to social welfare around the world, beginning with the 1898 pension for the elderly. These films document the first Labour government’s 1930s welfare policies, which were described by some as “the greatest political achievement in the country’s history.” Ways we can alleviate our current issues are explored through documentaries like Puhi Kai Ariki: A Salute to the Māori Women’s Welfare League (2004), and Saving Grace – Te Whakarauora Tangata (2011) by the late Merata Mita, as well as Campbell Live’s coverage of child poverty and campaigns to assist Kidscan.

On Saturday October 12, 4.30pm, the Film Archive will host a panel discussion on the intersections between New Zealand childhoods and social equality - and the representation of these issues in the media across history. Participating in the discussion will be the exhibition curator Tina Makereti, film maker Gaylene Preston, and journalist and author Max Rashbrooke.

Gaylene Preston has been making films in and about New Zealand since the 1980s. She has a unique perspective on her home country and has frequently taken on stories others have ignored. Among other films, her work includes Ruby and Rata (1990, a story of a mismatched pair - a monied elderly woman, and a working class single mother with an 8 year old son), and Bread and Roses (1993, an adaptation of Sonja Davies’ autobiography, presenting a portrait of an illegitimate child who grew up with the middle class, but not of it).

Max Rashbrooke has worked as a journalist for the Guardian (UK), the New Zealand Listener, and the New Zealand Herald, among other publications. His book, Inequality: A New Zealand Crisis (Bridget Williams Books 2013), which looks at the growing gap between New Zealand’s rich and poor, has recently been published.

Exhibition curator Tina Makereti is The Film Archive’s 2013 Curator-At-Large. She is a writer with a background in Social Anthropology and Māori Studies. Makereti has won several awards for her writing, including the Nga Kupu Ora Māori Book Awards Fiction Prize in 2011 for her short story collection, Once Upon a Time in Aotearoa (Huia Publishers, 2010) and the Royal Society of New Zealand Manhire Prize for Creative Science Writing (Non-Fiction) in 2009.

The exhibition will run from September 27 through November 23, 2013. At the Film Archive, 84 Taranaki St, Wellington. FREE ADMISSION.

ENDS

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