Exhibition on Hamilton’s people opens at Waikato Museum
Hamilton citizens call on 160 different ethnicities. Who would have known?
An exhibition that looks at the increasing diversity of Hamilton’s population opened at the Waikato Museum this week.
Two years in the making, the display in the museum’s community gallery attempts to lift the lid on the more than 160 different ethnicities that make up the city.
Journalism tutor Charles Riddle says the exhibition started off as a writing exercise loosely based on the well-known “Humans of New York” blog which explores diversity on that city’s streets.
“The idea quickly grew as we began to explore the statistics on migration and wondered how best to tell that story. The result was a book, The New Wave, published in 2015 and now the interactive exhibition.”
Wintec Media Arts researchers and students approached the city’s Migrant Centre for help and interviewed, photographed and recorded the stories of a number of migrants from around the world who have settled in Hamilton.
The migrants tell at times terrible, but uplifting, stories of their journey.
The exhibition is an interactive multi-media depiction of the city and visitors are invited to engage with the works on display.
Oral histories are played back through “talking heads”, a population clock counts down to the arrival of the next migrant, and three interactive websites tell migrants’ stories using words, photographs and video.
Visitors can also use a large touchscreen computer to investigate the demographic makeup of their own suburb.
The exhibition was made possible by support from the Wintec research fund and Trust Waikato. Some of the equipment used will be gifted to the migrant community at the close.
The exhibition is open 10-4.30pm until the end of October in the community gallery of the Waikato Museum.
