Poroutawhao School Foundation Pupils 1924 

School opened 26th May 1924. This photgraph was taken 7th July.

Back: Toko Nicholson, Olive Winiata, Eileen Madigan, Melba Timmins, Jean Guilford, Doreen Winiata, Patty Nicholson, Alfred Winiata.

Front: Charlie Winiata, Weka Hirini, Clyde Rolston, Colyn Rolston, John McKenzie, Lyell Smith, Ivan Smith, Ronald Madigan.

Teacher/Principal: Mr J. A. Kennedy

Who says cinema advertising had to be complicated? This slide, screened at the end of intermission, is as simple as can be! The Foxton Beach Store seemed to be the 'go to' place for everything- but in April 1928 it burned down in a fire. It is not known when this slide was made, but it could easily have been around this date given how simple it is!  A 1950s advertising guidebook stated that the screen advertising business was quite new in New Zealand.

One thing the slide does not mention is where the store was located (neither does the report on the fire). However, given how small Foxton is it was probably assumed that everyone knew anyway!

Every photograph is a window into the past- and sometimes what you see surprises you. Children singing a waiata about being kind to animals seems like a modern day school lesson, but the writing on this slide is from 1924! In the 1920s only a few private schools taught the grammer of Te Reo. Tragically, all the other schools saw speaking Te Reo as a caning offence. Was this slide of one of the private schools- or a smaller group or club? We just don't know.

Or maybe these children were located at Waiata Shores, near Auckland (although even then, few schools used Te Reo names for locations back in the 1920s).

Art historian Walter Benjamin coined a term called 'optical unconsciousness' and part of that is seeing a photograph in hindsight. The people in it do not know the future, but we do. Whatever this photograph depicted it seems like it belongs in our present than in it's past.

But the past is full of surprises!

A slide depicting a traditional farming scene from New Zealand made in around the 1920s. Agriculture was a popular theme in New Zealand painting, photography and literature at the time. The fact that it formed the biggest part of our economy no doubt had something to do with this.

This slide was designed to be projected onto a wall using a 'magic lantern' projector.