Curator’s Floor talk: ‘Person Includes Woman’

“Person Includes Woman: 19th Century Women Confronting the Lens”

Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga property lead and curator, Helen Osborne will lead this exhibition floor talk which reckons with the mechanisms of women's exclusion—socially, politically, and culturally—and how stories and voices long silenced can be realised and restored.

When the landmark Electoral Act passed on 19 September 1893, it granted a world first: voting rights to wāhine | women in Aotearoa New Zealand. For the first time, the law declared that “person includes woman,” a radical statement recognising the legal and universal status of wāhine | women. Legally specific, politically charged, and quietly subversive, these three words exposed the absurdity of women’s exclusion and marked a decisive step toward equality—a principle deeply embedded in Aotearoa New Zealand’s collective memory and identity.

In the decades before the vote was secured, photographer William Harding’s portraits of wāhine | women in the Whanganui-Rangitīkei region taken between 1856 and 1889, stand as witness to that era. From his Ridgway Street studio, Harding captured the images of a wide demographic of wāhine | women whose portraits contain untold narratives shaped by colonialism, loss, labour and identity. Though many sitters remain unnamed, their stillness and unwavering gazes assert presence and confront the viewer, demanding recognition of their experience and their unspoken consciousness of inequality.

Recognised in 2024 by UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register, Harding’s images were not created with political intent—yet they endure as art and witness. They are powerful sites of memory that connect us across time, prompting reflection on stories that demand recognition and dignity —often overlooked in the historical archives.

Tea/ coffee and cake can be purchased afterwards. Bookings welcome.

Browse in the Museum Gift Store - a sale 30% off marked stock.

Captions:-Attachment C12:- Unidentified woman. Harding, William James, 1826-1899: Negatives of Wanganui district. Ref: 1/4-030481-G. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/23090538

Attachment B6:- Amelia Drummond. Harding, William James, 1826-1899: Negatives of Wanganui district. Ref: 1/4-030246-G. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22875003

Attachment 23195787:- Unidentified young Maori woman with clear chin moko. Harding, William James, 1826-1899: Negatives of Wanganui district. Ref: 1/4-030469-G. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/23195787