Neil Penman’s dedication to photography was rooted in a deep respect for the importance of memory. In his memoir, To Go with the Grain, Penman acknowledges that histories can fade if they aren’t actively preserved. Penman’s impulse to record coincided with a period of change in Porirua, which experienced rapid growth from the 1960s through to the early 2000s. Attentive to the city’s development, Penman, a self-taught photographer, dedicated himself to documenting moments of urban transformation as they happened. He photographed the closing of Todd Motors, the changes at the Porirua psychiatric hospital, the construction of North City Plaza in the 1990s, the removal of the Porirua city centre’s canopies in 2015, the housing renewal of Porirua East and the restoration of historic cottages in the early 2000s.

In amongst Penman’s photographs are the people who were there throughout it all, including significant portraits of Ngāti Toa kaumātua. Working in black-and-white documentary style, he saw photography as a form of social history, preserving the stories of people and places for posterity.

In 2025, Penman’s daughters gifted to Pātaka the majority of their father’s photographic work, which forms the basis of this exhibition. Tomorrow’s Histories commemorates Penman’s legacy: a firm belief that a photograph taken today becomes a vital record for the generations of tomorrow.