"Over the years I kept in touch with some of the sisters and we often lamented the fact that these photos had never seen the light of day."
But that changed when she got a call "out of the blue" from Te Papa's Pacific Island curator, Nina Tonga, last year asking if she still had the photos from 26 years ago.
"Growing up in South Auckland, [Nina] had heard about the Pacific Sisters' work. She saw some of those black-and-white images of the Pacific Sisters on my website, and the sisters told her of this body of work we did."
The exhibition was opened by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in the new Toi Art Gallery at Te Papa last month, and Haldane was thrilled to have her images included.
"It's fantastic to see a retrospective of the [Pacific Sisters] work and to view the images in this context. It's a dream come true," she said.
• The Pacific Sisters exhibition runs at Te Papa's Toi Art Gallery until July 8.