Te Papa’s Blog

As of tomorrow until next Tuesday (2 October) we have even more racing cars on display to add to the wonderful mix that are already upstairs in our Formula One™ – The Great Design Race  exhibition.

Toyota Racing Series have brought with them their big transporter truck (way too big to get inside the building – hence being parked out front and four of their series racing cars. Two are actual cars used in races, one is a showcar (no engine – but thats the one you can sit in and have your photo taken if you show staff your F1 exhibition ticket) and the other is a specially-made two-seater.

They came to Te Papa today to unload and set up – but we’re running out of room! Janelle ran around trying to find where we could park two of the cars (where our bigs goods lift has access to as well)

ooh – shes a smart cookie…

Where do you reckon we put them? © Te Papa, 2009.Single seater is on the left. © Te Papa, 2009.

Single seater. © Te Papa, 2009.

Compare the front wings with the MP4-21. © Te Papa, 2009.

They’ll all be wheeled out tonight ready for you tomorrow – 2 inside and 2 outside.

 

Goodness me, Te Papa is a veritable seething mass of children and their families… YEP the school holidays are back on. We’ve got some very cool stuff for you to come and see and do!

Go and see the F1 beauties in Formula One™ – The Great Design Race, Level 4 – there are floor talks by the experts such Bob McMurray and Craig Russell – you can ask them all sorts of questions. These talks are especially for kids and their families and are on this Thursday at 1.00-2.00, Friday at 1.30-2.30, and Saturday, 1.00-2.00.

From tomorrow, Wednesday 30 September until Tuesday 6 October we have the Toyota Racing Series team visiting  Te Papa. THIS MEANS that they’ll have heaps of things on display like their transporter truck parked out front with a pit paddock set up.

The Toyota Racing Series transporter truck. © Toyota Racing Series

Inside Te Papa on level 2 you’ll be able to see their 2 seater car – this isn’t one of their normal racing cars (although being a co-driver in it would be very cool!) but one they use only very occasionally to give a very lucky person a ride.

For all those who’ve been into the Formula One™ – The Great Design Race exhibition – keep your tickets, go down to Level 2 and at you’ll be able to sit in the TRS showcar and not only get your photo taken but a little while later be able to collect the proof you were there – the photo printed at our HP station for free. This will be at certain times throughout the day so I will keep you posted about the times.

Once you’ve used your ticket to get your free photo – write your name and contact details on the back of it and put it into the lucky draw to win a Toyota Racing Series hospitality pack  for 4 to see the 55th New Zealand Grand Prix  at Manfeild 12 -14 February, 2010. I was looked after by Toyota at Manfeild earlier this year and believe me they’ll look after you! I had so much fun – I’ll be back at Manfeild to see the races again next year.

Te Papa is saddened at the passing of Sir Howard Morrison, and extends sympathy to his whanau and friends.

Over a long and distinguished career, Sir Howard brought great pleasure to many with his fine singing voice, and his ability to charm and entertain.

New Zealand has lost a consummate entertainer who had a special connection with Te Papa. At the opening of the Museum on 14 February 1998 he sang the national anthem and also concluded that special day by singing “Now is the Hour” at midnight.

The Howard Morrison Quartet also featured in Te Papa’s first online exhibition Maori Showbands.

“He was a seminal figure in the early days, influencing many of his peers….. In an historical sense all roads lead to, and from, Howard”

(Tainui Stephens)

We’re working to get this fabulous website back up, in tribute to Sir Howard. Let us know if you support this!

Tributes have flowed in for Sir Howard and you can find many of them online:

NZ Herald coverage of today ’s funeral

Biography of Sir Howard Morrison from NZ History Online

Film clips on NZ Onscreen including a wonderful documentary from 2002 “The Sir Howard Morrison Story” which includes Sir Howard’s explanation of his special connection with Tuhoe

Finally, here is the great man, singing one of New Zealand’s favourites “How Great Thou Art”:

This video clip is sourced from the YouTube website. Te Papa does not claim any responsibility for the contents or copyright status of the clip.

In early March, Te Papa Tongarewa was asked by an overseas museum if they could borrow ‘amakua hulu manu Kūka’ilimoku (feathered image) for an exhibition. As part of the process to allow or decline a loan, all the materials that make up an object need to be identified. We were unsure of the exact species of feathers used to cover the ‘amakua hulu manu Kūka’ilimoku. We asked our Bicultural Science Researcher Hokimate Harwood, if she could identify them.

Left: 'amakua hulu manu Kūka'ilimoku (feathered image), 1700s, maker unknown; feathers, animal teeth, pearl shell and plant fibres; gift of Lord St Oswald, 1912. Right: Close-up showing black Hawai'i mamo feathers used for the eyebrow

Over time a few of the feathers had fallen from the frame, which is made from split aerial rootlets of the ‘ie’ie vine (Freycinetia) and covered with netting of olonā fibre (Touchardia latifolia). Hokimate was able to use these feathers to make positive identifications.

Left: Microscope image of red Passerine feather. Right: I'iwi (Vestiaria coccinea). Photograph by Michael Walther, reproduced courtesy of Oahu Nature Tours

Fallen red feathers were identified under the microscope as originating from a passerine. The colour patterning, structure, and size of the feathers were consistent with the i’iwi (Vestiaria coccinea) bird. The i’iwi is an Hawaiian honeycreeper described as having vermillion red feathers. These red feathers cover most of the head of the image, and there are also remnants on the crest of the head.

Left: Microscope image of white Galliforme feather. Right: Red jungle fowl (Gallus gallus). Photograph by Michael Walther, reproduced courtesy of Oahu Nature Tours

The black and yellow feathers located on the eyebrows and ears were identified as most likely the extinct Hawaiian mamo (Drepanis pacifica), based on descriptions and images of mamo (Drepanis spp.) and o’o (Moho spp.) in Hawaiian avifauna literature. In the future, microscopic analysis could be used on fallen black or yellow feathers to distinguish between these two genera. Downy white feathers located on the crest were identified as Hawaiian fowl, most likely domesticated jungle fowl (Gallus gallus var. domesticus) by using microscopic comparisons.

Last Friday (25  September) was designated Blue Friday, part of the bigger Blue September to help raise awareness of prostate cancer here in New Zealand – about 600 men die of this disease every year. Not good!

People from around New Zealand were encouraged to wear blue, decorate in blue to help raise this awareness as well as  funds. Out the front of  Te Papa 600 blue crosses were placed on the ground with people being invited to observe two minutes silence in memory of those men who have died.

While inside the building – back of house – the Social Committee had encouraged staff to go blue, as well as donate to this very worthwhile cause. And to think we were a bit worried no-one would dress up…

© Te Papa, 2009.

 Bet you never knew we have our own Scrubs division here at Te Papa did you?
 

National Services put on a lovely spread ALTHOUGH they’re kinda lucky their colour scheme is blue – notice the freaky blue biscuit things…

© Te Papa, 2009.

Even the scissor hoists decided to participate, although Theresa had to persuade them

 

© Te Papa, 2009.

Nani and the other lovelys in Admin chose a Blue’s Clues theme to decorate their area with…

© Te Papa, 2009.

… while the Repatriation Team were more refined in their tastes – albeit with more of those biscuit things.

We had some Superman entries:

© Te Papa, 2009.' © Te Papa, 2009.

 

© Te Papa, 2009.

 And I thought you’d like to see our two IT gals considering you get to see & read a lot of their writing throughout our Te Papa blog:

© Te Papa, 2009.

Heres Lucy

© Te Papa, 2009.

and this is Florence.

 

What did you do for Blue Friday at your workplace?  Have a look at the Blue September website gallery  and see what other workplaces around New Zealand did. It’ll be even bigger next year I’m sure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ll be joining Lara Shepherd (Allan Wilson Centre, Massey University) to give a talk on Pseudopanax Monday night (21 September 2009) in Wellington.

We’ll begin by discussing each of the species: how to identify them and where to see them.  Then we’ll cover the results of our research projects that have looked at hybridisation between the species, and genetic variation within coastal five-finger (P. lessonii) and fierce lancewood (P. ferox).  We’ll touch on conservation issues, and the debate over where New Zealand’s forests survived during the Ice-Age.

The talk has been organised by the Wellington Botanical Society, but non-members are most welcome.

The meeting begins at 7.30pm in Lecture Theatre 101 of the Murphy Building, Victoria University.

More details of Wellington Botanical Society meetings.

Blog posts on Pseudopanax. 

Five finger, whauwhaupaku, Pseudopanax arboreus. Photo by Leon Perrie. (c) Leon Perrie, Wellington.

I just went to the opening of Reactive Architecture and I am blown away. It really is beautiful …and intriguing…. and thought provoking… and fun!

The exhibition plays with notions of machines and buildings reacting to light and movement and environment.

There was a great moment in the opening blessing where notions of machine and organic, modern and traditional came together. A beautiful juxtaposition as the soft, sound of Tom’s taonga pūoro, wooden Māori flute, was accompanied by the machine, robo-cop-hiss of one of the exhibits.

I am hoping we can get some video to put online soon, ‘cos the photos really don’t do justice to the sheer beauty as these machines move and shift in reaction to their human audiences – geek heaven!

In a passionate 20-armed-embrace Isabella Rosselli would say. Clad in a squid suit, Isabella explains the mating habits of our cephalopod friends in her quirky, family-friendly Green Porno series of short movies on SunDance Channel. 

I was amazed at how well she explains squid mating habits – they are quite strange and not really much like our own mammalian ones!

You can also find out about the mating habits of a whole range of creatures.  I never knew what it’d be like to be in the midst of an anchovy love-fest or that male elephant seals have harems! I haven’t seen the earth worm one yet but the mind boggles!
Green Porno on the Sundance Channel

A Squidie embrace

I’m just back from holiday in central Australia, near Alice Springs.

Even though it was holiday, I was still plant-spotting. (I could hardly walk around with my eyes closed, could I?)

There’s ferns even in the desert. Strictly speaking, it’s apparently an “arid” region, rather than desert. In any case, it was dry.

But there were still ferns. We noticed six species.

Resurrection ferns. So named because they curl up when it is dry and look dead, but spring back to life when it rains. We spotted two kinds: very hairy (Cheilanthes lasiophylla?) and not hairy (Cheilanthes sieberi?).

Cheilanthes lasiophylla. From left: dry and curled; resurrected, upperside; underside. Photos by Leon Perrie. (c) Leon Perrie, Wellington.

Cheilanthes sieberi. Photo by Leon Perrie. (c) Leon Perrie, Wellington.

The above two were actually quite common, poking out from crevices, and even abundant on the ground in places. The others were much less frequent.

Hairy ferns. Hairs are a common adaptation in the desert. They reduce evaporation.

Pleurosorus rutifolius (Blanket (!) fern) is related to Asplenium (the spleenwort ferns, including the hen & chickens fern). Photo by Leon Perrie. (c) Leon Perrie, Wellington.

Paraceterach reynoldsii is a hairy version of Pellaea (button ferns). Photo by Leon Perrie. (c) Leon Perrie, Wellington.

Marsilea ferns look like four-leaved clovers, and are principally aquatic. This one was in a watercourse that had dried up. Photo by Leon Perrie. (c) Leon Perrie, Wellington.

The oddity. Waterholes persist in some of the sheltered ‘gaps’ (river-cut passes through the ranges), even in the driest periods. These provide a home for more water-needing plants, including the shaking brake, Pteris tremula. 

Shaking Brake fern, Pteris tremula. Photo by Leon Perrie. (c) Leon Perrie, Wellington.

It may be no surprise that Pteris tremula also occurs in New Zealand. But so do Cheilanthes sieberi and Pleurosorus rutifolius, albeit in dry habitats.

Central Australia – it’s big and it’s dry. We had a couple of weeks on the Larapinta Trail, and another week driving around the nearby attractions. It’s not devoid of vegetation by any means, but the plants certainly don’t form a closed cover over the ground. More treeland (or ‘savannah’) than forest.

Typical vegetation along the Larapinta Trail. Most of the green trees are gums. The grey trees towards the back are wattles. The low-growing clumps are ‘spinifex’ grasses. Photo by Leon Perrie. (c) Leon Perrie, Wellington.

Looking towards Alice Springs from Euro Ridge. The dark colours are plants, comprising a woodland over the red earth. Photo by Leon Perrie. (c) Leon Perrie, Wellington.

Compared to our previous experiences on the Bibbulmun Track in south-western Australia, gums (albeit of shorter stature) and wattles are similarly common, but cassias (Senna) had largely replaced the true peas, the Proteaceae were much less diverse and interesting (just Hakea and Grevillea, but no Banksia, Dryandra etc.), and we didn’t see a single orchid.

Information on the Larapinta Trail.

Information on the Bibbulmun Track.

As you know from my previous post, Tales from Te Papa went live on TVNZ6 on 1 September. 

Over the coming weeks, we’ll post the mini-documentaries to the blog with more information – the stuff our staff weren’t able to fit into the Tales from Te Papa format and useful links to more info. 

We’d love to hear from you as well, so watch the clip and post comments  – is there anything else you want to know, do you have a suggestion for a future Tales from Te Papa episode?

Cloud by John Reynolds is a popular work in Toi Te Papa: Art of the Nation on Level 5 and it’s one of my favourites as well!  In the clip below, contemporary art curator , Charlotte Huddleston, talks with Simon Morton about the work.

Charlotte posted a blog shortly after Cloud was installed earlier in the year. 
More about Cloud with a video of the artist talking about his work

NOTE: Cloud closes on 17 January 2010 so we can prepare the gallery for the NZ entry to the 2009 Venice Biennale!