Auckland Secondary Schools Maori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, Manukau City. Samoan performer, De La Salle College

item details

NameAuckland Secondary Schools Maori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, Manukau City. Samoan performer, De La Salle College

ProductionGlenn Jowitt; photographer; 2001; Manukau

Classificationcolour photographs, inkjet prints, works of art, documentary photographs

Materialsink, paper

Materials Summarycolour photograph, inkjet print

Techniquescolour photography

DimensionsImage: 478mm (width), 324mm (height)

Registration NumberO.041132

Credit linePurchased 2012

Overview

Even after weeks of practice, anxious students can still need reassurance from their tutors on performance day.

Competition is intense at the Auckland Secondary Schools Maori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival (now ASB Polyfest). The annual three-day event, which began in 1976, helps sustain the cultures of Pacific students – almost all of whom are born in New Zealand – and builds their confidence and pride.

This image exemplifies Glenn Jowitt’s use of the camera ‘in a gentle way; I do not want to affect the subjects or their lives … my actions are all about sharing. I think of myself as their cultural conduit.’

This extract originally appeared in New Zealand Photography Collected: 175 Years of Photography in Aotearoa (Te Papa Press, 2025) on page 299.

Glenn Jowitt spent most of his thirty-six-year career photographing the cultures of the Pacific, both in Aotearoa and in the islands. His interest was sparked in the Auckland suburb of Grey Lynn, where Cook Islanders were his neighbours. ‘Tokelau was across the road, Niue was in Summer Street, Sāmoa in Scanlan Street and then there was the Tongan Church on Sackville Street,’ he recalled.1 His work was published in a bewildering number of mainly educational publications. Jowitt preferred not to put too much of himself in his photographs: ‘I am using the camera in a gentle way; I do not want to affect the subjects, or their lives. I feel I have a responsibility to them . . .I think of myself as their cultural conduit. My presence would interfere with the whole intention.’2 He was no passive observer, however, but an enthusiast for different cultures, seeing the camera as a licence, ‘a key to anywhere’:3 ‘I think of people as being on journeys, some people are into spiritual journeys, some people are into money journeys, I’m into a people journey and my photography is an expression of that.4

1 Sheridan Keith, ‘The Pacific effect: Sheridan Keith talks to Glenn Jowitt’, Art New Zealand, 2014, p.57.

2 Sheridan Keith, ‘The Pacific effect: Sheridan Keith talks to Glenn Jowitt’, p.60.

3 Sheridan Keith, ‘Glenn Jowitt: Black Power, Christchurch’, PhotoForum 46, August 1980, p.42.

4 Glenn Jowitt, telephone interview with author, March 2007.