Tag Archives: exhibition

Twentieth century history show – the view from the bridge

Changes are underway at Te Papa. The build for the new history exhibition Slice of Heaven - Twentieth Century Aotearoa has started. In under one months time, on 2 October 2010, the exhibition will open to the public.

The walls around the space have been up for a while but things are now really starting to take shape.

Most of the time when we’re putting in exhibitions you, the visitors, can’t see what’s going on. But this time you can see everything as it happens! 

Take a walk over the bridge from level 4 to Toi Te Papa on level 5 and have a look at the view. 

Here are some views from the bridge from a few weeks ago when construction had just begun:

The view from the bridge - Slice of Heaven construction gets underway.

The view from the bridge - Slice of Heaven construction gets underway. Copyright Te Papa, 2010.

A huge mass of wires is installed under the floor.

A huge mass of wires is installed under the floor. Copyright Te Papa, 2010.

To one side of the bridge two huge black boxes have been constructed. These are part of  the first section of the exhibition – the taller one will house  a memorial to New Zealand soldiers who died in World War One , with a focus on those who died at Passchendaele.

Construction of the first part of the exhibition, including the Passchendaele memorial.

Construction of the first part of the exhibition, including the Passchendaele memorial. Copyright Te Papa, 2010.

For big exhibitions such as this there is a whole project team involved. 

Three team members were really keen to see the exhibition they’ve been working on for more than year start to become a physical reality – Judy Strydom, Project Manager Interpretive Media; Kirstie Ross, Curator; and Prue Donald, Interpreter, on the bridge.

Team members on the bridge, excited to see construction underway.

Team members on the bridge, excited to see construction underway. Copyright Te Papa, 2010.

Watch out as we post more views from the bridge in the next week or two.

Celebrate World Refugee Day 2010

Smack bang in the middle of Matariki, the Maori New Year and all the creative (indoor!) activities that are taking place at the Matariki Festival at Te Papa, World Refugee Day is one of our key times to celebrate and discuss the diversity of our beautiful people and places, and the freedom we enjoy.

This year the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has set the global theme as “Home”, with the accompanying statement: “They took my home but they can’t take my future.” The theme aims to highlight the plight of refugees worldwide, as well as their courage and resilience.

 

Celebrated on Sunday June 20, New Zealand acknowledges World Refugee Day with a myriad of events, performances, forums, and celebrations throughout the land and indeed the world.

Wellington’s World Refugee Day will kick off at 10am, 20 June, at Newtown Park beginning with the Fourth Annual World Refugee Football Match, followed by a cultural fair and a tree planting event. As in previous years, the match is expected to attract both refugee background and local communities from the Hutt Valley, Porirua and Wellington. The first match will be between Refugee All-Star players from Africa and Asia, and the second will see players from another Refugee All-Star team challenge a Wellington Invitational Eleven.

A cultural fair with music, dance and food cooked by different refugee communities at Newtown Park club rooms will follow the football matches. Refugee background communities will then be able to plant a tree to ‘put down roots’ at Mt Albert Park, in a Rotary Club of Wellington and Project Crimson initiative.

The Commissioner for Race Relationtions has established a World Refugee Day website to publicise events around the country.  If you are planning one you can email them and have your event promoted for free.

Here are some photographs taken by Farah Omar, originally a refugee from Somalia, at last years World Regugee Day. These, and many other beautiful photographs are now displayed in The Mixing Room - stories from young refugees in NZ exhibition, Level 4, Te Papa.

World Refugee Day by you.
World Refugee Day Celebrations by you.
World Refugee Day Celebrations by you.
You could also visit the United Nations Refugee Agency and find out what you can do to help the plight of refugees.
Order free posters, booklets & other information
Participate in an event in your area
Donate to UNHCR’s global humanitarian work
Learn more about refugee protection

The Mixing Room at Te Papa wins award

The Mixing Room Team are the very proud recipients of the New Zealand Race Relations Commissioner Kaihautū Whakawhanaunga-ā-Iwi award for positive contributions to race relations.

The Mixing Room, stories from young refugees in New Zealand is a collaborative project between Te Papa and more than 70 refugee background young people from diverse communities, including Afghani, Bhutanese, Burmese, Burundian, Cambodian, Colombian, Congolese, Eritrean, Ethiopian, Iranian, Kosovar-Albanian, Rwandan, Somali, Sudanese, Tamil, and Vietnamese.

Refugee background youth forum at Te Papa

Following initial consultation with community leaders, a refugee background youth forum was held at Te Papa in early 2009. This confirmed the exhibition’s concept: ‘Optimism in a new land’, with the three themes of Challenge, Connection and Freedom. Subsequently, a youth reference group was established in Wellington comprising of around 10 young people who meet with Te Papa staff fortnightly. The group has helped with choosing material for the exhibition and provided feedback to Te Papa’s development team, ensuring the project is defined by young people.

Selecting photographs for the exhibition with the youth reference group

Fortnightly youth reference meeting at Te Papa

Next, a set of 12 professional tutorial workshops were held with young people in the six main refugee settlement areas: Auckland, Hamilton, Palmerston North, Wellington, Nelson and Christchurch. Young people from refugee backgrounds were employed to rally other young refugees to attend the workshops.

Digital story-telling workshop in Hamilton

Cast glass workshop in Auckland

The exhibition presents the young people’s stories in a range of creative, digital mediums including art, short film, poetry, performance, screen-printing, cast glass and digital story-telling. It was underpinned by the ‘capacity building’ approach, whereby the young people were empowered to tell their stories in their own way and upskill themselves in the process.

Screen-printing workshop in Christchurch

This award is really exciting for the Mixing Room team because it recognises that the project is bigger than the exhibition itself.  That we can measure success using a variety of models including that the process is as important as the end product.

A taste of what is to be included in the exhibition can be viewed on the new Mixing Room blog. You can also watch the music video ‘Belong’ on Youtube. The end product, the multimedia ‘Mixing Room’ exhibition will open at Te Papa on April 10 2010 and will run for three years in the community gallery.  So come along and be challenged, get connected and feel the freedom we all so luckily share in this great land of ours!

Avatar and the Pacific language connection

It seems the language of the Na’vi, the indigenous people of the planet Pandora, may be the latest addition to the family tree of Pacific languages. In recent publicity surrounding James Cameron’s blockbuster film Avatar, it was revealed that the development of the Na’vi language was influenced by Maori language. As reported by Charlie Gates of The Press “Cameron used language expert Paul Frommer, of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, to mould the alien language, mixing Maori with languages from Europe and Africa.”

In the Pacific, there is a ‘family tree’ of languages. When groups of people left their homeland and settled in new places in the Pacific, their languages began to change. Over hundreds of years, languages became quite distinct from the original language, or ‘proto-language’, of those languages left at home.

By comparing the sounds, words, and sentence structures of modern Pacific languages, linguistics researchers can trace historical relationships between different Pacific peoples and create what you could describe as ‘family trees’.  They can even reconstruct proto-languages that no longer exist. This gives us insights into the lives of the people who spoke those languages, sometimes thousands of years ago.

The connections between Pacific Islands languages have been important for telling stories here at Te Papa. In the exhibition Tangata O le Moana: the story of Pacific people in New Zealand language is an important strand of evidence highlighting the connections between Maori and their Pacific ancestors. For example, vaka, va‘a, and wa‘a are all words for canoe in various languages of the eastern Pacific. The Maori term is waka. Similarly fale, hale, ‘are and the Maori word whare are terms for house.

Next time you come to Te Papa visit the language barrel interactive in the Tangata O le Moana exhibition. Line up similar words in four Pacific languages, and listen to hear how they are spoken. You won’t hear Na’vi but you can decide for yourself whether Maori really is the proto-language of the native peoples of Pandora.

See the original news article

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/3248069/Avatar-language-based-on-Maori

Formula One at Te Papa… and a little chair waits…

Visa Platinum Gallery, empty and waiting...

Visa Platinum Gallery, empty and waiting…

We’ve carefully deinstalled the precious Monets and others – they’re already back in Boston…

Nearly all the walls have been taken down…

The Visa Platinum Gallery on Level 4 here at Te Papa is pretty much empty – in fact I think the last time I saw it so empty was for Henry Moore in 2002…ish. Have to confess – it’s an excellent space to sing very loudly in :)

So this little chair waits… what’s going in there?

Nine

beautiful,

sexy Formula One cars

- along with a whole lot of other amazing objects and stories.
Formula One™ – The Great Design Race will be opening 15 July 2009.

I can’t wait!

Psst – don’t worry, we’ll sweep the floor.

Check out Cannes film talent at Te Papa

Garry Watson of Torere, Te Kaha, and of Tainui and Ngāi Tai descent, shares the landscape that saved and healed him. Still from the film 'My Place', Blood Earth Fire Whangai Whenua Ahi Kā exhibition, directed by Mark Albiston, copyright Te Papa 2006

Garry Watson of Torere, Te Kaha, and of Tainui and Ngāi Tai descent, shares the landscape that saved and healed him. Still from the film ‘My Place’, Blood Earth Fire Whangai Whenua Ahi Kā exhibition, directed by Mark Albiston, copyright Te Papa 2006

Big congratulations to Wellington film director Mark Albiston, who won this Monday 25 May special mention at the Cannes Film Festival for his short film ‘The Six Dollar Fifty Man’. Two years ago he also received special mention for his short film ‘Run’.

Mark’s worked with the Interpretive team at Te Papa on several occasions, most notably by directing the film ‘My Place’ for the long-term exhibition Blood Earth Fire Whangāi Whenua Ahi Kā.  ‘My Place’ broke new ground in production values for a museum film, and was invited to screen at the Māori Film Festival. It’s also been a big hit with international visitors – every week we get emails from around the world asking to buy a copy (sorry guys, it’s not for sale).

If you haven’t already seen ‘My Place’, do pop along anytime to Blood Earth Fire (Level 3) anytime during opening hours – entry’s free. It runs for 30 minutes on constant loop and you can jump into the theatre anytime.

Mark’s currently negotiating international funding for his first feature film ‘Shopping’. He’s a talent to watch and we’ll no doubt be seeing more of him on the big screen. Go Mark!

Post by Lucinda Blackley, Team Leader Interpretation

And now for something a little different…

I’m off to Feilding this Saturday and to be honest am quite excited about it – why? you ask
 
Motoracing!

But I’ll back the car up a bit and explain why I’m going: part of my job is to be visitor advocate, mostly in the exhibitions we create, but also online product such as mini-sites, computer games, and blogs. We try to make sure that the storylines make sense, is there a different way to tell this story – should we do it by a label beside the object, or an image, or can we tell the story in an audio visual?

But to be a good advocate you have to have some understanding of your visitor. It’s pretty tricky trying to cater for absolutely everyone all at once – so sometimes you’ll find we put on exhibitions that you’ll be dying to go see and other times are quite happy to miss. Certain exhibitions for certain audiences.

But – what if you’re an advocate for a potential audience you really don’t know much about? How will you know what they might or might not like?

Do as the Romans do – get in amongst them, watch and learn.

So – I am going to the New Zealand Grand Prix at Manfeild raceway to check out potential visitors. I have never been to motor races before in my life and thought that seeing all this from a first-timer’s point of view would be interesting to share.

Keep checking in over the weekend as I’ll be blogging live. My job really rocks sometimes :-)

Squid star in the media

Hi everyone!

Here are some of the news items that have played in NZ over the last couple of days for your viewing/listening pleasure.

http://tvnz.co.nz/breakfast-news/breakfast-friday-december-12-2416405/video?vid=2416881

http://www.3news.co.nz/Gargantuan-squid-ready-for-its-public-debut/tabid/209/articleID/84084/cat/676/Default.aspx

http://www.primetv.co.nz/Default.aspx?alias=www.primetv.co.nz/news     FYI – this link will only be live till 5pm tonight NZ time – the item is at 9:44 through the broadcast

http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint - an audio report scroll down to ‘Colossal Squid’.

And finally http://www.stuff.co.nz/sundaystartimes/4792263a6005.html

Enjoy and let us know what coverage you have seen in your hometown!

It’s the Final COUNTDOWN…

…. now I can’t get the song out of my head!

© Copyright Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, 2008

© Copyright Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, 2008

For all you squid fans out there who’ve been waiting eagerly – and patiently for news on our beautiful colossal squid:

It’s (just wait – I’m counting the days back in my diary…) 23 days ’til she goes on display here at Te Papa so today we are launching our Countdown site.

Everyday we will show a new image of the colossal squid and/or the crew involved in this amazing journey so far. You’ll be able to access the blog where we’ll be updating you on the display installation and also link through to our existing Natural Environment squid info pages.

So save the page to your favourites and check in everyday – be a squid geek and BE PROUD!

www.tepapa.govt.nz/squid

cheers
Emma (a squid geek)

Colossal squid in 3D movie

ARLs 3D glasses © Copyright Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, 2008

ARLs 3D glasses © Copyright Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, 2008

Today the Exhibition team got our first taste of what our 3D Colossal Squid movie is going to look like. The exhibition opens in December and it will include Te Papa’s first 3D movie!

The production company Animation Research Ltd (ARL) sent us the latest cut of the movie and special 3D viewing glasses. Don’t worry we’ll have normal 3D glasses in the exhibition.

We all took turns to watch using the glasses – that’s Judy our Project Co-coordinator in the photo. Wow. It’s amazing to see the Colossal Squid and a whole lot of other deep sea fish literally come to life in front of you.

You might just be able to make out that the movie is still two separate images side-by-side. Each eye looks at one picture when you use the glasses. Your brain then recompiles them in to a single 3D image. When ARL have finished you’ll see a single image projected onto a screen and use normal 3D glasses.

Judy looking at the movie on her PC © Copyright Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, 2008

Judy looking at the movie on her PC © Copyright Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, 2008

We’re pretty excited about this part of the exhibition. The goal is to give you an idea of what the Squid’s life and environment might be like. We have to say might because until someone films one down in the deep sea we really won’t know for sure.

It has meant there have been some interesting conversations. How does it swim – cockatoo position or with arms straight out in front? How does the beak move when it’s eating? When would it use its light organs, or headlights when hunting?

We’ve been working with ARL for the last 2 months on this 3D movie. ARLis an amazing company in Dunedin who we worked with on the Whales/Tohora exhibition. They created the amazing Sperm Whale versus Giant Squid video.

Not long ‘til the exhibition opens – Dec 13th - and our girl goes on display. We’ll also have a new Squid website. It’ll have lots of the cool exhibition stuff including a version of the movie for those of you who can’t make it into the building. It’ll be a 2D version ‘cos as far as I know you can’t get 3D on the web – or can you?

Lucy Hoffman

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