Aperture – Nelson Arts Festival

A new play about Ans Westra and the beginnings of her long and influential career as one of New Zealand’s best-known social documentary photographers.

After workshopping the play at the 2018 Festival, award-winning Golden Bay actor Martine Baanvinger returns with this captivating and intimate one-woman play about New Zealand Arts Foundation Icon Photographer Ans Westra.

After emigrated from the Netherlands in 1957, Westra began using photography as a way of discovering her new homeland. Fascinated by Māori culture in particular, she created an intimate and unique documentation of day-to-day life, which led to a successful career capturing the essence of the people of Aotearoa.

Aperture focuses on the start of Westra’s career in the 1960s, including one of her first publications, the controversial school bulletin, Washday at the Pa, about a rural Māori family.

Written & performed by Martine Baanvinger
Supporting visuals by Klaasz Breukel
Music & soundscape by Mark Manson