Local photographer Julia Glover has experienced the excitement of Africa without leaving town.
Last year she met social entrepreneur Makanaka Tuwe after volunteering to shoot a fashion spread featuring African designers. Getting to know the statuesque Zimbabwean exposed Glover to this growing community. After delivering her work from the session, she continued to think about the people she'd met and their often extraordinary backgrounds.
"Some time went by after that shoot before I had this sudden urge to express the stories of the people who had moved here," says Glover, quietly nervous as she waits to collect the final enlargements of her portraits. "Since then we've been working together documenting them."
Janina Asiedu, one of Glover's subjects, has immersed herself in K Rd culture.
"Her parents are from Ghana, but she was born in Auckland. Janina works at Neck of the Woods [a basement night spot]. She's a singer, she's very creative and she's a model. African people who now call New Zealand home tend to have to work really hard to prove themselves. My mum's Brazilian and I relate to that. You go over there and you're perceived to be wealthy because of your skin colour. When I lived over there, I wore different clothes and then I was perceived differently. Then a similar thing happens when I return to New Zealand."
