Areas A & B: Housing in New Zealand (1946–) documents a community evening event organised for the local residents of East View Road in Glen Innes, at which artist Dieneke Jansen projected the 1946 film Housing in New Zealand onto the wall of an old state house that was about to be demolished.
Created by the New Zealand National Film Unit and the Public Works Department Film Unit, the film embodies the social dream of post-war New Zealand, of improving the living standards of the lower working class, accommodating returning servicemen, and stimulating the national economy. The goal, as promoted through the film, was to use local materials to build "good commonsense houses" that were to the New Zealand climate, but were also planned with stable city infrastructure and design that encouraged the development of community. Uncannily, the film’s description of the nation’s housing problem in many ways mirrors the housing situation in post-GFC Auckland, with poorer families forced into overcrowded dwellings, a real-estate market that is financially out of reach for young professionals, and rental properties that are overpriced and hard to come by.
The work is part of Jansen's 2015 project Areas A & B, a response to the major transformation of the suburb of Tamaki, Glen Innes, from a dedicated State Housing zone to being a private development of mid-rise apartment buildings with a mix of privately owned and socially assisted tenancy. By screening this film, Jansen created a social occasion for local residents though which they could consider the current transitional phase of Glenn Innes within a historical context.
— text adapted from Te Tuhi, 2015
