Building colourful collections at Wellington Museum
By Ian Wards, Kaipupuri Matua Taonga | Senior Curator (Taonga).
A poignant expression of a parent’s love, and a celebration of our multicultural city are the stories behind two colourful additions to Wellington Museum’s collection.
Te Waka Huia o Ngā Taonga Tuku Iho Wellington Museum actively collects and shares the stories of Pōneke for current and future generations.
Wellington Regional Hospital Nga Puna Wai Ora has donated murals made by respected former Dominion newspaper cartoonist Eric Heath, who created these vibrant artworks for Wellington Hospital in appreciation of the care and support his son David received from hospital staff while undergoing treatment for leukaemia.
Twenty years later, in 1989, while painting a second set of murals for the hospital, Eric recalled how staff did everything possible for David and his family during his nine months there, including letting a young friend cook meals with an electric fry-pan beside David’s bed and allowing David the occasional can of beer when he was tired of orange juice.
Poignantly, Eric shared that his son never knew he had leukaemia. David was told he was anaemic, as there was nothing medical staff could do for him at the time. David Heath died at 11 years of age in 1969.
Eric said that although hospital staff did everything to make David and the other children under their care happy, the building was a dingy place, so he and his wife Barbara decided to make and donate the original murals to brighten it up.
Not happy with his original work, Eric created the ones donated to Wellington Museum in 1989.
The murals, titled ‘The Circus comes to the Children’s Ward’, show animals and children, gentle drama and humour.
Eric Heath passed away aged 101 in July this year and was delighted to know that his murals had found a new home in the Wellington Museum collection.
Moving up a gear, a set of colourful costumes that stole the limelight during the Cuba Street Carnival in 2005 are also now in our collection. The Cuba Street Carnival was the precursor to today’s CubaDupa. Like CubaDupa it was a celebration of multicultural Wellington, music, creativity and fun.
The costumes’ donor Rose Mercer wore the yellow costume, and her sister-in-law Josiane do Nascimento Soares, the red one. Marita Ortiz wore the green costume (not part of the donation).
The costumes were specially made by artisans in Manaus, in the state of Amazonas, Brazil, and are based on those worn at the annual Amazon Folklore Festival at Parintins.
Rose Mercer’s husband Andrew came across the Amazon Folklore Festival while running the Telecom Amazon Adventure programme with New Zealand schools in the late 1990s.
These costumes were a prominent part of the Cuba Street Carnival in 2005, with Rose, Marita and Josiane dancing on one of the floats. Andrew Mercer recalls an image of the red costume being captured by a Wellington City Council photographer and subsequently seen on the side of a bus for about a year.
For Rose and Andrew Mercer, the costumes represent a time in Wellington’s history where cultural diversity was flourishing. The Latin American community in the city had grown from a small handful of people into a large vibrant community, who frequently gathered and mingled at Club Latinos in central Wellington.
The Cuba Street Carnival included Indian, Thai, Cambodian, Pasifika and communities from the African diaspora alongside Pākehā Wellingtonians, demonstrating the diversity and welcoming nature of the wider Wellington community. These costumes are touchstones to our diversity, and also vibrant, eye-catching symbols of Wellington’s long history of summer festivals.
Ian Wards is Wheako Pōneke Experience Wellington Senior Curator (Taonga).