Many stories and interviews later, Centuri Chan, Cate Grace, Neil Macbeth and Sarah Mankelow are holding their first major exhibition at Tūranga.
The exhibition, which runs until March 12, features portraits and stories of 10 residents from across the city.
It also has a digital screen containing more stories and a mailbox for people to nominate someone they know.
To select 10 from 175 profiles was not an easy task, Chan said.
“Everyone has a story worthy of sharing,” he added.
Said Chan: “Some of the stories that we picked have a strong image and a strong story. The visual side of it also played a part in selecting those 10.”
Chan, along with Macbeth and Grace, started the project using a similar format to Humans of New York - a photography project launched in 2010 to celebrate the US city's diverse communities.
The format was also adopted in other cities, including Amsterdam, Melbourne, Auckland and Bombay.
Mankelow, who came on board in 2019 as a storyteller, said the team found people through a range of sources, including personal connections. They also used a cold approach.
"So I started talking to them and asked them what was happening."
When asked how she gets people to share personal stories with her, Mankelow said she treats the interviews as an open conversation.
"I think actively listening and being empathetic and open makes people feel more relaxed," she said.
"Sometimes they will say things that you are not necessarily expecting."
There are many occasions where people have revealed their experiences and stories off-the-record, she said.
"I like to call the stories a gift because it’s like someone giving it to you, so you have to see it as that and feel really good about the fact that someone feels comfortable enough to tell you something hard.
"Sometimes seeing the impact of the story is rewarding.
"Some stories we know have real impact both on the person telling it and for the readers sometimes.
"Like to know that someone else is having the same life experiences as you and you don’t feel alone."
At the moment, she has about 16 stories waiting to be transcribed and processed.
Mankelow said the opportunity to join the team came after Macbeth, the photographer, asked if she could nominate anyone she knew for the project.
Being a city council parks department staff member, Mankelow decided to shine a light on one of the volunteers.
That was when she was invited to become a part of the team.
The group became a charitable trust in 2019, meaning it can apply for funding and grants to support its activities.
'Red Chair Chats' - part of the Christchurch Heritage Festival 2022 - was among the group’s projects made possible through city council funding.
The chats are sessions where anyone can sit down and share their stories with the team members.
So far, the team has held four sessions in four locations - Margaret Mahy Playground, Eastgate, Lyttelton Farmers’ Market and Cathedral Square.
The exhibition ‘Everyone has a story’ runs until March 12 at Tūranga, Te Pito Huarewa/Southbase Gallery.
Sarah Mankelow and Neil Macbeth were on their way to interview someone else when they drove past Patricia putting her free bookshop on the footpath. They did the interview an hour later. Patricia was six years old when her cousins put her in dresses and she enjoyed it. Since then, Patricia said she’s been in and out over the years. The only thing she regretted was not telling her wife the truth when they got married 54 years ago. “It took a couple of years to get it out of me,” she said. Read more here.
Mankelow was at a cafe when she came across Yvonne and Carl, who were on their way to meet up with other people from the local steampunk community. The interview and the photo were taken at their house an hour later. Yvonne and Carl met each other when Carl came into Yvonne’s store. Their first conversation lasted about half an hour. Yvonne said it was the first time she had met someone she could be herself with. She invited him out for a coffee, but wasn’t sure where he was at emotionally as his wife had recently passed away. “But I thought, even as friends, that would be nice. And it just sort of went from there,” she said.
Read more about Yvonne and Carl here.
Mankelow reached out to Neith after coming across his Facebook page Over The Top Cycling. It all started with Neith wanting to get into rowing, a sport his teacher described as “bloody expensive”. While looking for a minimum wage job, Neith came up with the idea of starting his own business. But he said it had to be eco-friendly. Neith thought of making skateboards out of bottle-caps, after he found out bottle-caps could be turned into chopping boards. He told Mankelow at the exhibition his business has taken off ever since his story was posted on Humans of Christchurch Ōtautahi. Read more about Neith here.
- Read more about the Humans of Christchurch here.
