Documenting South Auckland through Photo's: South Auckland Photo Club
A group of photographers are working to immortalise our hometowns - the places we all know and love. With gentrification on the rise and the landscape shifting faster than many realise, they’re determined to keep these places alive, if not in reality, then in memory, through their work.
“Together, those images form a growing collective archive of South Auckland, shaped not by one viewpoint but by many.”
That’s how South Auckland Photo Club founder, Geoff Matautia, describes the heart of the project. What began as a simple invitation for locals to take photos has grown into a community-led movement determined to preserve the everyday: the shops we grew up visiting, the parks we learned to ride bikes in, the streets that shaped our childhoods.
Geoff says the club is “grounded in participation,” created for anyone - complete beginners with phones, seasoned hobbyists, and everyone in between. The goal was always bigger than photography. As he explains, “A big part of the inception of the photo club is ensuring that people hundreds of years from now have images to look back on - to see the beautiful places, communities and people we get to experience every day.”
But he knew it would take many hands to do that well. “I realised it would take a collective effort to do that well. So I started this club as a way to share skills, encourage creativity, and get outside together - sometimes that even means getting your 10k steps in on a photo walk!”
There’s this urgency behind the kaupapa, because South Auckland is changing right in front of our eyes. One minute your favourite shop is there, the next it’s gone. Families shift, streets get rebuilt, and the places we’ve known our whole lives start to look different.
As Geoffrey puts it, “If we don’t document what’s here now, parts of our history - our everyday history - will be lost. By photographing the ordinary, we’re actually preserving very important markers of history: the places that shaped us, the people who hold us, the memories we might take for granted until they’re gone.”
That mission became beautifully clear during the Photo Club’s recent exhibition at the Māngere Arts Centre. Geoffrey has exhibited many times before, but nothing compared to seeing brand-new photographers - many showing their work for the first time.
“Seeing others - especially first-time exhibitors - experience that pride of having a photo they have taken being showcased in an exhibition was the real highlight. It shows that our stories are worthy of being seen and celebrated in art spaces.”
For Geoffrey, that moment reinforced exactly why this kaupapa exists: “This archive belongs to the community, and the community deserves to see itself represented.”
A living, growing archive built by the people who walk these streets, love these neighbourhoods, and refuse to let their memories disappear.
View the exhibition at Mangere Arts Centre showing NOW until December 6th.