A creative and a humanitarian, Stu Robertson says “I just genuinely want to make a difference”. Not motivated by material possessions, the 56-year-old’s been engaged on a global peace project for 15 years, and tells Philip Chandler he’s now on the verge of launching a tech company overseas.

 

For someone who’s made quite a global impact, he’s pretty low-key in Queenstown.

Stu Robertson is 15 years into a worldwide project photographing 10,000 people holding a white silk rose — the ancient symbol for peace — and asking everyone what peace means to them.

He’s also aiming to raise $100 million through the project for children’s charities involved in health and education.

A self-styled “social capitalist”, he’s also about to “take on the world” through a tech company he and other locals own.

Raised in Auckland, with two grandfathers keen photographers, Stu had charitable instincts from a young age.

After gaining a marketing degree majoring in advertising and PR, he became a newspaper sales rep, taking the company car for Meals on Wheels deliveries every Wednesday — “they wondered why my mileage was so high on Wednesdays”.

Co-founding a sports magazine that pioneered colour photography, he declared he’d one day move to Queenstown after first visiting in about ’89 to write skiing features.

Owning a cleaning company, he cleaned buildings and restaurants with a backpack vacuum for 14 years.

During a trip to the United States, he had popped into a Ripley’s Believe It of Not! attraction while waiting for a boat, and was taught some tricks by a magician.

That then propelled him into a career as a magician, on-stage pickpocket and stand-up comedian on cruise ships and even on TV.

“I’ve done stand-up comedy shows for 3000 people.”

Stu also started an agency booking acts which gradually morphed into New Zealand’s largest events company, The Orange Group, under which he and his former wife Semele operated several entities.

He designed Auckland event venue, The Cloud, and provided entertainment and fitted out corporate boxes for the likes of the 2011 Rugby World Cup.

“Our monthly wage bill was like a million bucks.

“Clients would spend $1 million on one party back in the day.”

He even set up a Queenstown branch which of course gave him an excuse to come down.

Though he’s since sold out, Stu says the various entities still operate today.

“We did a significant amount of charitable and philanthropic work, a disproportionate amount for most companies.”

Eclipsing that, in 2010 he started his ‘Peace in 10,000 Hands’ project “to challenge and reinvigorate the conversation for peace”.

Early on he went to great lengths to photograph the Dalai Lama in the US — “I was told, until you have him, you have nothing” — which ended with him being interrogated by the Security Service.

“He blessed the rose and he blessed me and the project in that moment.”

Other celebs Stu’s captured included Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Demi Moore, Ringo Starr and Jamie Lee Curtis.

For his mission he’s been honoured to be named a Leica ambassador, and has shot with his grandfather Eric Paton’s Leica lenses.

Aiming to capture someone from every country in the world, he’s garnered global media attention including an item on TV’s 60 Minutes.

“I can’t do New York, Tokyo, London, Sydney and Queenstown and say I have a global peace project.

“I’ve lived in a dirt-floored shack, been in a shanty town, I’ve not had great things happen to me and been threatened, but I don’t talk about that.”

Last year Stu crossed the Polish border into war-torn Ukraine — “I found myself in a situation I shouldn’t have been in and was at the door of a prison.”

Having shot about 4500 photos and published his ‘first collection’ in 2014, “I’m going to drop the hammer next year” and hopefully photograph his 10,000th hands in five years’ time.

He won’t reveal what he’s raised so far, but has already given “a significant amount” for charities to raise funds with.

“If each photo only sold for $2000, that’s $20m, so the [$100m] figure doesn’t scare me.”

Stu’s latest book, Colours of Antarctica (2024), features photos from two visits to the frozen continent, which he’s been interested in from a young age.

It only came about while living in Los Angeles with a broken leg, and being encouraged to look through his Antarctica photos.

“I put a little presentation together, sent it to one of the managing directors of Leica, and my Leica exhibition opened the world’s largest Leica gallery.”

Stu’s collaborated with Kiwi muso Tiki Taane on an exhibition, and recently produced a 15-minute film featuring a Porsche 356 Roadster on a South Island road tour.

He’s excited about the impending global launch of a tech company, Authi, which he co-founded with other local investors.

“Basically, we take over the screen of a terminal before you tap to pay, and we ask a question, make an offer, give you a QR code.

“It makes me very proud of Queenstown knocking it away to the world.”

Stu, whose Queenstown home doubles as a private gallery, says “I’m not motivated by money or having a better car or house or anything like that”.

“I just genuinely want to make a difference.

“I just think we can all be kinder, we can all do more, and your actions speak louder than your words.”

So he’d be the type who goes round topping up parking meters?

“I’ve done that,” he laughs.

As for Queenstown’s attraction, Stu says “the vibration of this place is unlike anywhere else on the planet”.

And as for being stuck in the traffic, “just look left or right [at the scenery], what a blessing”.

scoop@scene.co.nz