From August 29 to September 22 1990, the World Youth Festival took place in Christchurch. The festival featured an impressive range of events and activities. These included multiple musical, dance and theatre performances, as well as a fair, a film festival, an art exhibition, a parade, a book week, an ethnic cultural day, a chess tournament, an ice skating championship, a horse show, orienteering, a BMX meet, a skateboarding demonstration, an archery tournament, and even a boomerang workshop.

The World Youth Festival was one of many events held in 1990 to celebrate New Zealand’s sesquicentennial – 150 years since the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. The festival’s official souvenir programme encouraged youth to “Share the future hopes and dreams of young people everywhere.” The programme described the festival as “our opportunity to focus on those who hold the key to our future: the young people of New Zealand and the world.”

The poster pictured above was one of over 4000 created for the New Zealand 1990 Commission, which was set up to initiate activities and enable commemorative events for the sesquicentennial. The Commission aimed to: - increase the understanding and awareness of the Treaty of Waitangi; - increase awareness and understanding of alternative points of view and differing cultural backgrounds; - to encourage planning and thinking for the next 50 years to lay a better foundation for the future.

Archives Reference: ABLG W3781 12/74 (R21171886) www.archway.archives.govt.nz/ViewFullItem.do?code=21171886

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