Serena Stevenson on the camera at Splore in 2018, before the partial loss of her eyesight.
Despite the partial loss of her sight, Auckland photographer and film-maker Serena Stevenson’s latest project is a visionary masterpiece.
You could say Serena Stevenson has seen it all. From shooting fashion spreads for glossy magazines to covertly interviewing political activists by candlelight, she’s been telling stories with pictures since she was given a Pentax K1000 camera on her 16th birthday.
For her first full-length documentary Roots on the Move, released in 2011, Stevenson filmed undercover with a travelling music festival amid violent unrest in northeast India, smuggling out archive footage burned on to a CD.
A decade later, she was at Tāpapakanga Regional Park, south of Auckland, making a series of mini-documentaries on five female artists performing at Splore.
It was late February 2021 when the last act wrapped and Stevenson packed up her gear for the drive home to Te Henga/Bethells Beach.
Six months later, she woke up one morning to discover her peripheral sight had gone dark.
A CT scan quickly ruled out a brain tumour, but swelling had caused permanent damage to her optic nerves – possibly the delayed effects of untreated concussion.
The diagnosis came as a devastating blow to Stevenson, who’s now blind in one eye and has impaired perception in the other.
“All the fibres just broke and died, and they don’t grow back,” she says. “It happens over two weeks and basically you just watch your eyesight disappearing in front of you.”
The arts community rallied behind a Givealittle campaign that raised money to help her travel to a specialist clinic in Germany for electrical stimulation therapy.
The treatment improved her vision by 35%. Despite the imperfections that remain, Stevenson is back on the camera and remains a visionary storyteller at the top of her game.
Her latest project, a homage to Splore, is one of the most ambitious, innovative works she’s ever created.
Described as an immersive “cinematic experience”, Three Days in February has no interviews or linear narration, blending documentary footage with a curated soundscape and an original live musical score.
Celebrating Splore’s colourful culture and diverse community, it’s been compiled from some 40 terabytes of footage shot at the three-day festival – by Stevenson and a handful of others – every year since 2018.
The festival is taking a break this year, but on February 14, the film will be presented as a multimedia concert at Auckland’s Civic Theatre, featuring circus, music and dance performances. A massed choir will sing people through the doors.
While that’s a one-off event, it’s also been chosen to screen as part of the 2025 Doc Edge film festival programme in July and there are plans to tour it more widely.
Stevenson has a long history with Splore, attending the festival for the first time in 2000 and documenting it as part of the official crew since 2008.
As a child, she used to go camping along that coast with her family. “So I have my own personal connection with it and it’s become such a huge part of my culture, this eclectic, colourful, creative community,” she says.
“But I didn’t want to make a documentary about a music and arts festival. I wanted to make something that really expressed my beliefs and values in life and what it is that I feel I’m contributing to with my work.”
Three Days in February devotes little screen time to the performers on stage. Instead, it’s a celebration of the relationship between people and place, with extended camera shots lingering on everything from the intimate beauty of the opening pōwhiri to a burst of purple tinsel dancing in the wind.
Like the festival itself, the effect is both poetic and playful. In one vignette, a couple dressed up as sheep, wearing tutus over their onesies, are knitting on a haybale by the beach.
Splore founder Amanda Wright, who handed over the reins to her co-director John Minty in 2014, has remained a close friend. She still DJs at the festival and is part of Stevenson’s wellness network as her Qigong teacher and breath-work coach.
“I’m blown away by her bravery and her boldness and her vision,” Wright says. “Splore is about human connection, which is so vital in all of our lives, and Serena captures the essence and spirit of that in her own unique, magical way.”
A blend of diverse cultural influences herself, Stevenson was born in South Auckland to an Italian mother and a Scottish-Kiwi dad.
As a teenager, she began photographing her Italian family at mealtimes, in particular her grandmother, who migrated from southern Italy to Melbourne after World War II and raised 10 children.
One of Stevenson’s works in progress is a “storytelling cookbook” called No English, Darling that documents 40 recipes handed down by her Nonna, who lived until the age of 93.
Another ongoing initiative is the Preloved Project, a large-scale multimedia concept inspired by op-shop culture, combining video, photography, interactive installations, events and street art.
Always an intuitive photographer, Stevenson believes that quality has been heightened by her partial loss of sight.
“It hasn’t been easy, going from being that fully sighted person before. But I think it’s made my work – and this is the feedback I’ve had from people – even more powerful,” she says.
“I know about light and composition. It’s second-nature, because, I’ve been looking at it for 30 years. I can see light, but my memory helps me to see it, too, because it’s embedded in all my cells.
“Photography is not just about seeing. It’s about feeling. I’m a people photographer and I’m a storyteller, so it’s always been about feeling for me.”
Joanna Wane is an award-winning senior feature writer in the New Zealand Herald’s Lifestyle Premium team, with a special interest in social issues and the arts.
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