PIVOT has been lucky enough to shoot portraits and documentary series for Frankie Magazine since 2012. Recently we were commissioned to enter the world of three sprightly women who are living together. These are not just any women though. For a start, Shirley is 79, Cecelia is 80 and Rachel is 62. And they're all Sisters of Compassion, a religious order founded in New Zealand by French nun Suzanne Aubert in 1892. Theirs is an order known for 'doing' rather than cloistered contemplation - in Wellington the women are well-known for running a soup kitchen, a crèche and a hospital.
The short story of how they ended up in this rented house together is that the house they were living in at the Home of Compassion was an earthquake risk. The sisters stumbled on an empty property down the road is Wellington's southern suburb of Island Bay. The owner could hardly imagine a better set of tenants than senior-citizen nuns, so the deal was done!