Revealed December 31, 2020 1:08PM
LUCKY and grateful are the phrases former Gisborne lady Vicki-Anne Heikell makes use of to explain how she feels about changing into a member of the New Zealand Order of Benefit for her providers to heritage preservation and Maori.
Ms Heikell is called within the New 12 months’s Honours checklist right this moment.
“I used to be just a little bit shocked after I first noticed the e-mail about it, I believed it was spam. Then an official letter from the Governor Normal arrived just a few days earlier than Christmas. It was a pleasant shock going into Christmas and a bit arduous to maintain it secret too,” Ms Heikell stated.
Ms Heikell lives in Porirua however was born and raised in Gisborne. She is of Te Whanau a Apanui descent however has robust hyperlinks to the Tairawhiti area.
She is the eldest daughter of Agnes and the late John Heikell. She went to Mangapapa Main College, St Mary’s College and Campion Faculty earlier than going to Victoria College in Wellington to check for an arts diploma majoring in sociology.
Ms Heikell began working within the conservator subject when she was 25. She is 53 now, however says her quarter of a century of labor on this subject “would not really feel that lengthy. I really feel like I am nonetheless studying issues”, she stated.
Her first expertise in conservation work was in Tairawhiti working with Cliff Whiting, Ben Pewhairangi, Nick Tupara and Dean Whiting on the Porourangi assembly home at Waiomatatini in 1989.
“I helped clear carvings on the route of Cliff and Ben.
“I rely myself fortunate to have began this work in Tairawhiti with them. I’m eternally indebted to them.”
After a summer season vacation job at Heritage NZ doing analysis into whare that Cliff Whiting was trying to restore, she determined to use for a scholarship to check conservation in Australia.
“On the scholarship committee had been these superb wahine toa — Te Aue Davis, Waana Davis, Ngahuia Te Awekotuku and Mina McKenzie.”
Ms McKenzie was the primary Maori lady director of a museum, the Manawatu Museum (now Te Manawa), in Palmerston North.
“They recognized there wanted to be Maori conservators — these ladies had been visionary,” Ms Heikell stated.
“They noticed an issue they usually recognized it. The answer was we wanted Maori-trained conservators.”
She adopted Dean Whiting, Nick Tupara and Rangi Te Kanawa to Canberra to check for a Bachelor of Utilized Science in conservation of cultural supplies. She specialised in paper conservation.
“I knew that in our marae, and held by whanau, had been many papers — issues like pictures, tales of our tupuna and whakapapa books.”
Returning to New Zealand she labored on the Alexander Turnbull Library for a 12 months.
“As Maori conservators we felt an obligation to work in and for the communities.
“After I began on the Turnbull Library it was on the entrance of my thoughts. I began to run workshops that may educate folks how you can care for his or her whanau collections. From there it grew.
“I really feel extraordinarily grateful for the work I do. I’ve been pondering lots about these ladies who stated we wanted Maori conservators — they might be so proud to know in a approach their work is being recognised and rewarded.”
From 1993 to 1997 Ms Heikell was a paper conservator on the Nationwide Library of New Zealand and from 1997 to 2000, was nationwide preservation officer Maori on the Nationwide Library.
She was paper conservator with the Nationwide Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa from 2003 to 2010, alongside supporting the Nationwide Providers Te Paerangi and iwi outreach group to develop and run marae and museum-based preservation workshops.
She has been subject conservator for the Nationwide Preservation Workplace, Alexander Turnbull Library since 2010.
She has been concerned with nationally vital tasks together with “Pukana: moments in Maori efficiency” and the He Tohu exhibition of a number of of Aotearoa’s key constitutional paperwork.
For a few years she has supplied mentoring and recommendation on the care and preservation of artworks on paper and coaching and recommendation for iwi, hapu, whanau on preservation of paper-based taonga.
Ms Heikell is at the moment on the Ngati Porou Taonga Advisory Board and is a previous president of the New Zealand Conservators of Cultural Materials collective.
‘EXTREMELY GRATEFUL’: Former Gisborne lady Vicki-Anne Heikell has been named a member of the New Zealand Order of Benefit for her providers to heritage preservation and Maori. Image by Mark Beatty
