School class portrait of children in the Primers class at Mornington School, Wellington, including the dog. 1926. Silver gelatin glass negative, ref: ½-231358-G, ATL: Unpublished Collections

The Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington houses Aotearoa New Zealand’s national documentary heritage collection, including the country’s largest and most comprehensive collection of photographs, numbering in the millions.  The collection spans the 1850s to the present day, in the form of cased photographs, negatives, positives, prints, transparencies and born-digital files.

Among its highlights are nationally significant bodies of work by professional photographers from and around Ōtautahi Christchurch: Adam Maclay, Steffano Webb, R. P. Moore, and Gladys Goodall, collections that together are an important part of our visual history.

In this April talk, Mark Strange, Specialist Conservator of Photographs, will discuss how the Alexander Turnbull Library conserves and provides access to damaged and deteriorating photographs. He will also share a selection of historic and digitised images from these Christchurch collections.

Mark will also be happy to answer questions about preserving photographs in domestic or non‑institutional environments, without specialist facilities or resources.