Pictures, storytelling and design helps to spotlight housing disaster for seniors

Listen Up!, a brand new exhibition and graphic novel by photographer and Senior Lecturer David Cook, is the centrepiece of the nationwide launch of Christchurch Methodist Mission (CMM) Doors to Dignity marketing campaign. The marketing campaign requires a cross-party dedication to sustained authorities funding in safe, inexpensive housing for older folks.

Listen Up! was launched this week in Parliament at a operate attended by dignitaries and MPs from throughout the political spectrum. The following day it was moved throughout Parliament grounds to Wellington Cathedral of St Paul for public viewing till Wednesday 1 April.

In 2025, David Cook spent 10 weeks in his former hometown by means of a residency at Te Matariki Tai Ora / The Arts Centre in Christchurch.

He says the graphic novel ‘Listen Up’, designed by Massey colleague Professor Anna Brown brings to life the conversations he had through the residency with 24 seniors and kaumātua who generously shared their experiences of housing stress, insecurity and hope.

The Retirement Commission estimates that by 2048, 40 per cent of retirees, round 600,000 folks can be renting. The Christchurch Methodist Mission says within the 5 years to December 2024, the variety of New Zealanders aged 65 years and over on the Housing Register has greater than doubled, a a lot better share improve than for another age group.

David Cook says bringing the voices of seniors into certainly one of Wellington’s most iconic public areas is each well timed and vital.

“One of things that came through again and again in my project was why don’t you talk with us? So I had groups of people sitting around the table drawing plans for ideal housing scenarios to build mixed communities.”

‘Listen Up’ is the second collaboration between David Cook and Professor Brown, who’s the founder and analysis lead of Toi Āria: Design for Public Good at Toi Rauwhārangi College of Creative Arts.

Professor Brown proposed utilizing an sudden method to presenting the images and create extra consideration across the urgency of senior housing.

“You don’t expect a project focused on seniors to be presented in a cartoon or comic format, and that surprise invites people to engage with the stories in a more open and accessible way.”

In 2023, David Cook and Professor Brown created Ko te Reo ō Ngā Tāngata / The People’s Voice which aimed to offer a counternarrative on social housing in Aotearoa New Zealand by channelling and visualising content material immediately from tenants of Wellington City Council social housing.

The exhibition design for Listen Up! was created and put in by Senior Lecturer in Spatial and Industrial Design, Matthijs Siljee with help from industrial designer and Masters of Design pupil, Kaiyu Li.

Siljee developed a bespoke picket exhibition system that enables the photographic works and graphic panels to be simply put in, packed down and moved. The complete exhibition was designed to be movable in a single day from Parliament to Wellington Cathedral.

“The design means we can literally pack in and pack out in hours so the exhibition is across the road and ready to open the following day.”

Listen Up! is open to the general public at Wellington Cathedral of St Paul till Wednesday 1 April. See occasion data right here Events – Doors to Dignity