Edith Amituanai is not quite sure what sort of sea creatures might be popping up in her photo booth this week but she is excited, and a little bit nervous to find out.
A photographer, she has invited West Harbour school and early childhood pupils to make something related to the ocean to wear and then get their photo taken in her photo booth as part of this year’s West Harbour Arts Charitable Trust artist in residence project.
Amituanai is working with Port Chalmers and Purakanaui Schools and early childhood centres around self-portraiture as an art form.
It is an area Amituanai has specialised in over the years. She is acclaimed for her photographs of her Samoan and family community in Auckland and has exhibited her work in galleries and museums across New Zealand and internationally.
She only discovered the camera after trying out lots of different ways of expressing herself to find out.
"It was a process of elimination actually. I figured out it’s not the paint brush, I’m not a sculptor so it must be a camera."
Amituanai went on to complete a bachelor of design degree, majoring in photography, in 2005 and then a master of fine arts from Elam in 2009. In 2007 she won the inaugural Marti Friedlander Photography award and in 2008 was the first Walters prize nominee of Pacific descent. In 2019 she was made a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to the community and photography.
"Awards and accolades are good but I think they mean more to other people. It does validate me, I think if you’re applying for funding."
While some artists go between different mediums, Amituanai finds photography is enough for her, so she pulls in other artists or participants with different skills to help her with her projects like her portraits.
Interest in people, how they live, what they think of themselves and how they want to be seen, drives her work.
"Portrait is one form."
Her Samoan community was a good training ground for learning the skills of a photographer, she says.
"You start in your own community and family. You treat strangers the same way, the same approach applies. If you wouldn’t photograph your grandmother like that why would you photograph someone else?"
It also taught her the importance of relationship building and how long that can take, as well as understanding people and places.
"Ten days is nothing to come here and try and do something. I am relying on being led here by the community.
"I’m sharing what I know how to do. It’s something we are doing together.
"Sure, I led it or made up the rules, but it is something I hope is a shared experience you might remember."
Amituanai sees it as a way to make archives for communities. Photographic archives fascinate Amituanai.
"This is documentation for the school for the community. Maybe they’ll look back and see themselves when they were younger, show their children."
Her work with school children developed out of her own experience as a mother watching her son go off to intermediate school about the same time she was photographing her community and house interiors.
"It started me thinking of intermediates. When I went to intermediate school, it was quite far away from where I used to live.
"My friends and I used to walk this long route to school. I remember we felt so free, that kind of coming of adulthood and feeling of becoming more independent. It was really looking at that reminded me that as much as we love our children eventually they become independent human beings in the world."
She was also doing some teaching and wondering about the backgrounds of her pupils and found that working with schools in partnership was a great way to gain insights into a community as it is often hard for an artist to make contacts in a new community otherwise.
"They are the heart of a community — you get everything, the parents, teachers, generations of families, you get all of that. It’s a good examination of society through a school. It’s an old trick.
"It’s very mixed my way of working."
"It’s fun. You find out how regions make their money, employment, housing, you learn all that through schools."
So when the trust asked if she would be interested in taking part in its artist’s residency, she was keen, especially as she knew fellow artist and trust member Octavia Cook and has worked with her before.
From there she and the trust had a Zoom meeting with the school and developed a rough plan of what she could do while in Port Chalmers. The residency traditionally finishes with a public parade of what the pupils have made during the residency.
They looked at what is a common theme at the school and discovered all the classrooms are named after a sea creature.
"So the ocean is obviously very important. That was a starting point and the parade at the end of the residency is a big deal."
From her work with other schools she found making something to wear for a portrait was a good way to get people in front of the camera "often in disguise as someone or something else".
"I hope it’ll be big and interesting."
They decided to ask the children to make something related to the ocean they could wear for the photograph and parade.
"It’ll be an ocean-related portrait. I will do some photography and I hope some young keen photographer will help with the photographs. Generally those who are keen put themselves forward — they’ll learn by doing."
She has set up her photo booth in the school hall to capture images of the dresssed up pupils.
"I do love a photo booth. The old notion of the town photographer who would have the one camera and the town would go and get their pictures taken.
"I like that idea of the documentation of a town, of one generation is done by one person. It’s a really important role."
Amituanai sees these projects as a skill sharing.
"It’s something that has been good to me. It’s allowed me to have another life, or a life my parents wanted perhaps for me."
She has also found young people look not only at the skill she brings to the table but the "entire package".
"They want to know how you came here, who paid for you, to see if there is a pathway for them. This is an example."
The experience, she hopes, will ignite something in young people encouraging them to take up photography or the arts.
"Or follow this if this is what they want to do. I do hope this is a pathway more people will hold on to as they continue through life. It’s amazing."
Although she admits it is not always an easy life.
"I remember travelling and not having enough money to eat while I was doing a workshop and I’d just eat the free biscuit in the hotel."
But that travel is also one of the amazing aspects of the work.
"Being able to see parts of the world or New Zealand that my friends will never see. I guess it’s seeing them in a non-tourist way, too. There is no way I’d see Port Chalmers like this as a tourist. It’s quite special, you can’t get it in a brochure."
To see:
West Harbour Arts Charitable Trust celebration parade around Albertson Ave, food stalls and live music at Port Chalmers School, Sunday November 27, 11am.
