Kete Horowhenua collects past, present for our future

If you could speak to those in the future, what would you want them to know? To see? To understand?

What would you want to be recalled and remembered, 20, 50, 100+ years from now? What would your local history story be?

There are an immense amount of moments strung out across a lifetime, from the fleeting to the profound. How much of this can be held in our brains, preserved in our memories? The brain, as amazing and complex as it is, simply cannot hold all those witnessed moments and crystallise them into recallable memories. They’re as vast as stars in the sky, and sometimes as elusive. And so, how do we remember as much as possible, for as long as possible?

For the longest time, humans have sought ways to remember better. Many reasons can underpin the desire to preserve, from the personal and individual desire to remember, to precedentsetting forms of culture making, to the act of nationbuilding through collective narratives of history. And as powerful as remembering is, forgetting or being forgotten, intentionally or otherwise, can be akin to fading from existence.

Archives matter, they help preserve the collective meaning of a community, recount its history, bear witness and tell stories. Archives are an important bridge between the past, present and future.

Here, we have our online local history archive Kete Horowhenua (www.horowhenua.kete.net.nz).

Kete Horowhenua is a knowledge basket of images, audio, video, documents and local history records, for and about the Horowhenua region. It’s a community-built online repository from which you can search, share and download thousands of photos and items about the Horowhenua.

Kete Horowhenua is a living archive, and we need our community to contribute to it, and while we are always on the lookout for historical local content, last week’s tornado is a great reminder that preserving what happens today for the future, is just as vital.

That includes the records of big events such as Friday’s tornado with the evidence of nature’s wrath, and the tales of resilience, community togetherness and compassion. But it also includes photos and records of everyday life.

These snapshots of the seemingly mundane are far more compelling and important than people realise, especially as time creeps on, and what was “everyday” crystallises into “the past”. Big events tell us grand narratives of what happened, but the records of the normal life speak so much to how people lived and what mattered to them, it’s a far more intimate and insightful story.

One of the great records of early Horowhenua life is the photographs of Leslie Adkin. Held across Te Papa and the Alexander Turnbull Library, they consists of some 7000 negatives and 50 photo albums. The collection is an honest documentation of life, including vignettes of family, friends, leisure and work, the “everyday”. So much has been preserved, and so much has been learned, in Leslie’s snapshots of life.

So … what’s your local history story?

We’d love to preserve any photos or video you may have of last week’s tornado. Please send them through to kete@horowhenua.govt.nz, along with any supporting information you have.

Alternatively, if you have any local history records (historical or current) that you’d like to contribute to Kete Horowhenua, please email us on kete@horowhenua.govt.nz