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Tapa – stunning artworks in Paperskin exhibition

15 June 2010 – 10.07am

This Saturday 19 June Te Papa opens it’s new tapa exhibition – Paperskin: the art of tapa.

Preparing to install some of the masks from Papua New Guinea.

Preparing to install some of the masks from Papua New Guinea. Copyright Te Papa 2010

You’ll be able to see a stunning range of more than 40 tapa artworks from throughout the Pacific. Huge awe inspiring masks from Papua New Guinea,  Hawaiian tapa more than two hundred years old, and an incredible 22 metre long  Tongan tapa which hasn’t been on display before. The show was developed with the Queensland Art Gallery and Queensland Museum and includes tapa from their collections. 

Installing a mandas mask from Papua New Guinea, which is nearly 4 metres high.

Installing a mandas mask from Papua New Guinea, which is nearly 4 metres high. Copyright Te Papa 2010

The one thing that all the works have in common is that they are made of tapa, or barkcloth. The plants used to make the tapa include paper mulberry, and banyan tree roots. The tapa is decorated in different ways in different islands in the Pacific, and the patterns and motifs used vary.

Installing large pieces of tapa is quite a challenge – the tapa, or barkcloth, is fragile and needs to be handled carefully.

A large Cook Island tapa is carefully moved into position, ready to be hung.

A large Cook Island tapa is carefully moved into position, ready to be hung. Copyright Te Papa 2010

The 5 metre long tapa from Mangaia, in the Cook Islands is hung on the wall.

The 5 metre long tapa from Mangaia, in the Cook Islands is hung on the wall. Copyright Te Papa 2010

More about the anga (tapa) from Mangaia, Cook Islands.

The tapa works in this exhibition look particularly good because of they way they have been displayed – the tapa cloth seems to float off the walls. The secret to this is the use of some small but extremely strong magnets which help hold the cloth in place.

Conservator Rangi Te Kanawa shows one of the magnets used to hold the tapa in place.

Conservator Rangi Te Kanawa shows one of the magnets used to hold the tapa in place. Copyright Te Papa 2010.

The magnets are so powerful that they are almost impossible to pull apart with your bare hands. If you put one magnet on either side of your finger, they stay there!

Demonstrating the power of the magnets.

Demonstrating the power of the magnets. Copyright Te Papa 2010.

When you come and see an exhibition you might think “What’s all the fuss about? that looks simple to put together”. But appearances can be deceptive and the reality is a bit different. For it all to go smoothly requires careful planning and preparation and great teamwork on the day.

To find out more about Paperskin check the exhibition website.

Explore all the tapa artworks on display in the online catalogue.

Posted in Exhibitions, Pacific | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (1)

The art of sounding the pūtātara shell trumpet

1 April 2010 – 4.24pm

The staff in Te Papa’s taonga pūoro group are very lucky to have Richard Nunns as our mentor. Through his teaching and encouragement we continue to explore the kaupapa of taonga pūoro.

Richard Nunns talks to Te Papa's taonga pūoro group, March 2010.

Richard Nunns talks to Te Papa's taonga pūoro group, March 2010. Copyright Te Papa.

Richard is an incredibly busy man, travelling throughout New Zealand and often overseas, involved in many different projects.  If he has a spare hour and he’s in Wellington he comes to work with our group. Recently he came to talk to us about the pūtātara and show us how it’s played.

Richard Nunns talking about pūtātara on Te Papa's marae, March 2010. Copyright Te Papa.

The pūtātara is a trumpet made from a conch, or triton, shell.  It’s loud, signal call is heard more often these days, and is used to mark special occasions such as opening ceremonies.

Conch shell trumpets are common musical instruments throughout the Pacific, such as this one from the Marquesas, in Te Papa’s collection. In Aotearoa New Zealand these shell trumpets have a wooden mouthpiece attached to the shell.

The large conch shell species (Charonia tritonis) is not found naturally in New Zealand. A smaller, native shell (Charonia lampas) was used. It’s only in more recent times that large Pacific conches have been brought into New Zealand and used to make pūtātara.

Learning to play the pūtātara well takes a lot of practice. It’s probably useful to have understanding neighbours! I found out that you need strong lips. After trying to sound a pūtātara for a while you get a strange buzzing feeling in your lips from all the vibrations. You also have to go away and work on your “embouchure” (a term trumpet and saxophone players will know) – which means how you form your mouth around the mouthpiece.

Richard Nunns playing a pūtātara, March 2010. Copyright Te Papa.

As you start off playing the pūtātara it helps to give the sound a good punch, then try to sustain the note, and fade off slowly. As you get better at it you can shape the sound and make it more melodic, by using your hand placed inside the mouth of the shell. Each pūtātara is different and has its own, individual voice.

Under Richard’s guidance the sound of pūtātara will continue to increase and grow at Te Papa – and for that we are truly grateful.

View pūtātara in Te Papa’s collections

Posted in Māori | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (1)

Amgueddfa blog

14 January 2010 – 6.49pm

Michael Houlihan, Te Papa’s newly appointed CEO, is currently Director General of Amgueddfa Cymru National Museum Wales.

http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/

In a recent post on the Amgueddfa blog Michael talks about his decision to make the big move from Wales to New Zealand:

http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/blog/?cat=409

I was checking out pictures on the Amgueddfa blog of the wildlife and woodlands in the snow at St Fagans the National History Museum.This open-air museum is one of the seven museums that make up Amgueddfa Cymru National Museum Wales.

http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/blog/?entry=236

http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/stfagans/

It might not be very warm or summery here in Wellington right now but spare a thought for everyone over in Britain where the winter conditions have been described as ”glacial”.  A note on the St Fagans home page tells visitors that the museum is closed “due to snow and ice”.

Brrrrr…. summer in Wellington not so bad after all?

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Our new CEO – Michael Houlihan

14 January 2010 – 11.41am
Michael Houlihan, Te Papa's new CEO

Michael Houlihan, Te Papa's new CEO

Te Papa has a new CEO – Michael Houlihan.

Yesterday the Chairman and Board of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa confirmed the appointment of Michael Houlihan as the new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for the museum.

Michael Houlihan was interviewed yesterday morning, shortly after the announcement, by Simon Morton on Radio NZ National’s Summer Report.

http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/summerreport/20100113

Listen to the interview here:

http://podcast.radionz.co.nz/srpt/srpt-20100113-0911-New_Te_Papa_CEOs_plans_for_the_museum-048.mp3

Incidentally, Simon Morton is no stranger to Te Papa  – he’s been going ‘behind the scenes’ getting to know the collections and the staff as one of the presenters of “Tales from Te Papa”. You can explore them here:

http://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/theme.aspx?irn=2074

And so a new tale from Te Papa begins.

 

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Making connections – the house that Gideon Mantell was born in

8 January 2010 – 3.12pm

One of the great things about blogs are the connections that get made. For Te Papa this means we get new and interesting links to things in our collections.

The house in Lewes where Gideon Mantell was born in Feb 1790, as it looks today - in the snow, 2010. Copyright Debby Matthews.

Debby Mathews lives in Lewes, near Brighton in the south of England – in the same house in which Gideon Mantell was born, on 3 Feb 1790! The house is timber framed and dates back to 1700. Gideon’s father had a shoemaking workshop downstairs and the family lived upstairs.

What’s the connection? Well Debby saw our recent post about the fossil iguanodon tooth. It’s one of the most significant items in Te Papa’s collections and the topic of a recent Tales of Te Papa

Watch Tales of Te Papa – the iguanodon tooth

Gideon Mantell described the fossil in 1825 and it’s considered to be the very first fossil to be recognised as being from a dinosaur. On that basis, our resident geologist Hamish Campbell calls the fossil tooth “one of the holy grails of natural science”!

Find out more about the iguanodon tooth on Collections Online

Debby sent us a picture of the house the other day. It’s covered in snow right now, as the UK experiences one of the coldest winters in many years!

She is involved in celebrating the work of Gideon Mantell in his home town of Lewes, and organising events for 2010 to commemorate 220 years since his birth. We hope she’ll keep up the links with Te Papa and the famous iguanodon tooth that has journeyed all the way out to New Zealand and  into our collection.

Posted in Collections Online, History | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Christmas tree tikis at Te Papa

23 December 2009 – 9.23pm

It’s Christmas at Te Papa and this year’s Christmas tree decorations are on a pounamu and paua theme.

Te Papa's pounamu and paua Christmas tree

Te Papa's pounamu and paua Christmas tree

The colourful creations include tikis as you’ve never seen them before! Here’s one with fabulous tropical looking flowers…


tiki decorations on the Te Papa Christmas tree

Tiki decorations on the Te Papa Christmas tree

But my favourite tiki is this one with it’s red sparkly hearts…

Christmas tree tiki with sequins

Christmas tree tiki with sequins at Te Papa

If you’d like to make a decoration to add to the tree come along to Te Huka a Tai, the Discovery Centre on Level 4.

http://www.tepapa.govt.nz/WhatsOn/allevents/Pages/MakeaChristmasdecoration12dec.aspx

Or to see the pounamu hei tiki that inspired these tiki creations, plus many more hei tiki made from pounamu, check out the Kura Pounamu exhibition on level 4 and the pounamu website.

http://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/exhibitions/pounamu

Meri kirihimete!

Posted in Exhibitions, Kids, Māori | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (4)

Colossal squid at Te Papa turns one year old

18 December 2009 – 3.08pm
Pamela's one year old squid

Pamela's one year old squid

Hey squid fans

Time flies when you’re having fun! The colossal squid at Te Papa has turned one year old.

Now’s a good time to check out the squid you made on Build a Squid. http://squid.tepapa.govt.nz/build-a-squid

See how old you’ve got, how much you weigh (eek) and what you’ve been getting up to.

My squid is 368 days old, has travelled over 3,000 kilometres and weighs 154 kilograms. At the moment my squid has just escaped another colossal squid.

If you’ve got visitors over Christmas who haven’t seen the squid, check it out online and get them into Te Papa to see it in all its squiddy glory.

http://squid.tepapa.govt.nz/

Posted in Colossal squid | Tagged , , | Comments (12)

Killer whales again today, Owhiro Bay

12 December 2009 – 3.38pm

There were killer whales (orca) hanging around Wellington harbour yesterday – as reported by Anton van Helden, Te Papa’s marine mammal specialist. More killer whales were seen this morning, though I’d don’t know if they are  the same animals.

After a txt from Anton I raced down to the South Coast at Owhiro Bay, not far from where I live, and headed round to Te Kopahou Reserve, towards Red Rocks.

Te Kopahou Reserve, South Coast, Wellington

Te Kopahou Reserve, South Coast, Wellington. Copyright Pamela Lovis

I’ve been a bit of a whale fanatic ever since working with Anton on Te Papa’s Whales Tohora exhibition (which is now touring the States). I’ve still to see a live killer whale, so here was my chance….

I missed them by about 15 minutes – by the time I got there they had moved off further round the coast! People with better eyesight than me could still see a fin or two in the distance.

The fellow whale fans who had been watching them told me they had seen four killer whales swim right into the bay, close to the shore. I was green with jealousy – what an amazing sight (and I’d missed it!).

The whales included one large animal with a large, tall dorsal fin. The size and shape of the fin of a killer whale can be used to identify individual animals. Research scientists such as Ingrid Visser use this information to identify killer whales seen in New Zealand waters.

Watching killer whales near Owhiro Bay, Wellington South Coast

Watching killer whales near Owhiro Bay, Wellington South Coast. Copyright Pamela Lovis

So no pictures from me of the killer whales to share, but if anyone out there did get a picture of them please tell us .

Posted in Exhibitions, Whales, Whales | Tohorā | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (1)

Dinosaurs in time for Christmas!

10 December 2009 – 1.54pm

I was walking along the corridor at the back of Te Papa the other day and spotted these boxes….

Dinosaur boxes in the corridor

Dinosaur boxes in the corridor. Copyright Te Papa

You see some quite strange things out the back of Te Papa (it could be a blog all of its own ”Out  back Te Papa” ) but this was one of the better ones.

Further investigation revealed that the dinosaurs had escaped from their boxes and were now living in the workshop next door. Some staff got to meet them…

Meeting a dinosaur in the workshop.

Meeting a dinosaur in the workshop. Copyright Te Papa

Since then the dinosaurs have been on the move.  If you look carefully you’ll see their heads poking above the barrier in the Awesome Forces exhibition on Level Two.

From tomorrow you’ll be able to get a proper look at these scary looking raptors, which are part of a makeover of this exhibition. The two dinosaur models come from Germany and are of a dromaeosaur species, Deinonychus.

No one has found fossils of Deinonychus in New Zealand … yet. But they have been found in Antarctica, Australia and other parts of Gondwana so it’s likely that they did live here once.

Did I mention the unusual packing that the dinosaur models arrived in? – nicely padded bra inserts to protect those sharp claws…

Dinosaur model and worried staff member with unusual packing material

I feel a caption competition coming on! Copyright Te Papa

Unusual packing material for dinosaurs

Unusual packing material for dinosaurs. Copyright Te Papa

Posted in Exhibitions, Fossils | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Taking a fresh look

3 December 2009 – 5.14pm

Last week was one hectic “digital” week at Te Papa. We were involved in NDF, Culturemondo, a workshop with Seb Chan (Powerhouse Museum) and Nina Simon, and then a seminar with Nina on the marae, arranged by National Services Te Paerangi.

Seb Chan and Nina Simon pointing the way for Te Papa

Seb Chan ready to help with our web metrics. Copyright Te Papa

The week started with the National Digital Forum Conference – around 300 people from NZ museums, libraries and archives attended (the highest number yet) over 2 days for the annual get together. There were great presentations from the keynote speakers as well as lively forum discussions about sector issues – such as fair use, geodata, digital repatriation and digital preservation. Always a great networking and catch up time, NDF now has a ning, with 118 members to date. So join in the conversation and help keep it going through the year until the next NDF.

I met Daniel Incandela from the Indianapolis Museum of Art  at Museums and the Web 2009. So it was a pleasure to see him here in NZ, inspiring us about the IMA’s huge achievements in the digital arena – projects such as Art Babble. He reminded me of the importance of building relationships with colleagues and visitors, something we sometimes overlook.  A personal highlight was showing Daniel the colossal squid, in the flesh… 

Nina Simon did something never seen before at NDF – she got us up out of our seats, interacting vigorously… and hitting a very large gong. (I guess you had to be there). To end the conference on such a buzz was quite an achievement. It shows Nina’s incredible skills as a facilitator, and her talent for getting to the essence of things.

Post NDF, Seb Chan and Nina Simon lead a workshop with a group of Te Papa staff  to help us with our digital strategy. The intricacies of web data and working out what it all means is a skill we need to develop – what’s the point of doing digital stuff if you don’t know who is using it and how? Thank goodness for Google Analytics.

Nina took over for the afternoon. Her energy is infectious. She challenged us to think about engaging our audiences - how we engage with them (on the museum floor and online), the kinds of relationships we want to build with users, and what those interactions could be like.

My group ended up out of our seats (again) and onto the floor to take a fresh look at the pounamu mauri stone on the marae. It’s been handled, admired, and polished by visitors to Te Papa for more than 10 years now.  It’s a place people gather around and start talking with each other. It’s a popular spot for a photo and it’s a point in the museum visitors to Te Papa come back and visit, time after time. It’s certainly a place we could look at building on our relationships with our visitors and seeking more opportunities for participation.

Engaging over pounamu. Copyright Te Papa.

After that week my head is really full. But I feel inspired re things digital and I’m all set  for a fresh look at what we do at Te Papa.

A huge, warm thank you goes out to Seb Chan and Nina Simon for sharing their expertise with us.

Posted in Exhibitions | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (0)
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