Road People of Aotearoa
Paul Gilbert
PwC Tower, HSBC Tower, Aon Centre, Jarden House and Deloitte Centre lobbies
15 Customs St West, Auckland Central
27 May - 17 June 2026
Part of the Auckland Festival of Photography
Paul Gilbert, Dale Whitcomb and Trevor & Rangi McGlinchey’s trucks, 309 Road, Coromandel, 1979
In 1978, Gilbert resigned from his professional role at the Auckland City Art Gallery to focus on Road People of Aotearoa, a project providing a rare glimpse into the New Zealand house-truck movement. This landmark body of work captures an intimate view of an alternative lifestyle during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Rather than acting as a detached observer, Gilbert was an active participant in this community, having been one of the founders and travelling in his own mobile home. Iris, was his beloved green 1934 WTL Bedford bus, fitted with a Chevy motor and sporting a clear skylight so he could watch the stars in bed. For Gilbert and his subjects, movement was a vital expression of belonging to a mobile community that shared a deep-seated rejection of conventional norms. This counterculture was driven by the era's ideals of self-sufficiency, recycling, and a "back-to-the-land" philosophy that sought to escape the status quo and suburban life.
Gilbert’s lens documented these journeys not as a series of stops, but as a continuous way of life - capturing the intricate "living architecture" of hand-converted vehicles and the families who travelled the back roads of Aotearoa, converging at festivals like Nambassa and Sweetwaters. The photographs to be on display at the Auckland Festival of Photography 2026 have been selected from a historic photo-essay that was posthumously edited and published in 2021 by Rim Books, called Road People of Aotearoa: House-truck journeys 1978-1984. Today, his legacy continues through the efforts of his sister, Linda Gilbert who is a contemporary abstract painter. She actively curates and archives his work to ensure its place in New Zealand's artistic history. Thanks to her for support of this exhibition.
This exhibition is proudly hosted by Precinct Properties throughout the lobbies of the PwC Tower, HSBC Tower, Aon Centre, Jarden House and Deloitte Centre. Downlaod MAP, a guide around the foyers.