On Wednesday 3rd December 2025 at the National Library, historian Elizabeth Cox spoke about her new book Mr Ward’s Map: Victorian Wellington Street by Street.
In 1891, a remarkable map of Wellington was made by surveyor Thomas Ward. It recorded the footprint of every building, from Thorndon in the north, across the teeming, inner-city slums of Te Aro, to Berhampore in the south.
Updated regularly over the next 10 years, it detailed hotels, theatres, oyster saloons, brothels, shops, stables, Parliament, Māori kāinga, the Town Belt, the prisons, the ‘lunatic asylum’, and the hospital. The map is incredibly detailed — it even includes the location of street lights.
Elizabeth Cox is a Wellington historian who specialises in New Zealand’s social and architectural history. Her previous book, Making Space: A history of New Zealand women in architecture, was published in 2022.
Download transcript of this talk (PDF)
8 Aug 2025
Making ‘A Rather Queer Cuba Street’ with AI
On 6th August 2025 at National Library, Gareth Watkins and Dr Roger Smith from PrideNZ and Walk Tours NZ presented their work using off-the-shelf AI software to bring to life their oral history recordings of Cuba St, Wellington New Zealand.
Drawing on the PrideNZ archival audio collection, A Rather Queer Cuba Street was a site-based event that combined eye-witness audio clips, AI-generated human avatars, and live presentation to create an engaging, feature-rich historical experience.
From AI transcriptions of oral histories to AI-assisted identification of engaging quotations from long-form interviews, and the creation of video elements featuring AI human avatars.
Gareth Watkins is the founder and editor of PrideNZ. He, along with Roger Smith, co-founded Walk Tours NZ in 2017 – offering free community LGBTIQ+ walk tours around Wellington. Dr Roger Smith is also a contributor to PrideNZ and a past Trustee of the Lesbian and Gay Archives of New Zealand (now Kawe Mahara).
Download a transcript of this talk (PDF)
Download slides used for this talk (PDF)
A video of the full talk will be available on YouTube in the next few days. We will link to it from here.
6 Jun 2025
Rewind: The Craft of Historical Storytelling in Podcasts
Podcast producers William Ray and Kirsten Johnstone discuss crafting captivating historical narratives for podcasts, exploring storytelling techniques and audio design to engage listeners with complex history in this interview.
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
5 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 11 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
10
Social presence
0
YouTube
0
Engagement
32
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