The blog of New Zealand’s Audiovisual Archive
Wellington may have enjoyed an unusually-splendid summer this year, but three Victoria University Māori Studies students have not seen a lot of the sun. They spent their break from late November until late February in the Taranaki Street offices of Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision. With headphones fixed to their heads they passed the summer listening to the voices of tūpuna, recorded many decades before they were born.
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Thanks to tinted film stock silent movies weren’t always black and white! Diane McAllen writes about a recent project to preserve Rudall Haywards ‘community comedy’ A Daughter of Christchurch in the vivid blues, pinks and oranges that would’ve been seen by audiences in the 1920s.
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Waitangi Day has often been a time for powerful oratory. Here’s an example from New Zealand’s 150th Anniversary celebrations in 1990, made on Waitangi Day by Bishop Whakahuihui Vercoe, with a little scene-setting commentary by Hēnare Te Ua.
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The sound recordings made at pōwhiri in January 1946 to welcome home the men of the (28) Māori Battalion, are the focus of a new online exhibition launched this week by Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision, Te Hokinga Mai o Te Rōpū Rua Tekau mā Waru.
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Experiences of Christmas in New Zealand differ hugely throughout the years. Where you were, and sometimes who you were meant you might not always have the classic Kiwi barbecue! Sound archivist Sarah Johnston has picked out a few of the more unusual Christmases recorded in our archives.
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