Hei tiki (pendant in human form), Dec 2008, Rotorua. Gardiner, Lewis. Purchased 2009. Te Papa
Te Papa’s exhibition “Kura Pounamu: Treasured Jade Art of Aotearoa New Zealand” opens on 1 April at Liangzhu Museum, Hangzhou, China.
Liangzhu Museum is located in the heart of one of the largest and most significant jade archaeological sites in China dating back over 5000 years.
新西兰国家博物馆-蒂帕帕关于“毛利碧玉：新西兰文化艺术珍品展”即将于今年4月1日在中国杭州市的良渚博物院展出。 良渚博物院座落于中国最大的也是最显著的玉文化遗址区，良渚玉文化有超过5千年的历史。
2012 marks the 40th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the People’s Republic of China and New Zealand. To mark the occasion, Te Papa is delighted to partner with the National Museum of China to present two exhibitions that speak of the friendship between our two countries.
Kura Pounamu exhibition at the National Museum of China. Te Papa
The hugely successful opening event on 31 October, was attended by over 300 invited guests and members of the public as well as New Zealand’s Ambassador to China and New Zealand Embassy and business representatives. Around 50 members of the press also attended and Te Papa’s Chief Executive, Mike Houlihan later interviewed on China Central TV.
Iwi representatives Shane Te Ruki (Ngati Maniapoto) and Richard Wallace (Ngai Tahu) opened the exhibition with a karakia.
Hei matau
Tim Tait is one of Te Papa’s talented IT developers and one smart cookie. He put together the fabulous touchscreen image browser which you can find in our Kura Pounamu exhibition – and after more of Tim’s hard work this is now available on our website.
All 200 of the incredible pounamu taonga on display in the exhibition can be explored. You can zoom into the images and get incredible detail.
For example you can see the intricate shaping of the suspension hole in a hei tiki. The patterning and mineral inclusions in the different types of pounamu become clearly visible, as in the image above of a hei matau (pendant) made of kawakawa.
In some cases what you can see is better than if you were able to hold the taonga in your hand and view it up close. I can’t help thinking that this is a great research tool. It will help increase our knowledge and understanding of these taonga and the pounamu they were made from.
I’m told that the technology at play behind the display is a web browser running Silverlight 3 hardware accelerated in full screen mode. You can read more about the techie stuff here, plus see a great video of Tim at work!
