Tag Archives: objects

Slice of Heaven: 20th century Aotearoa – first view from the floor

One week to go before Slice of Heaven opens and they let me in for a quick peek at the exhibition – from the floor this time, not the bridge!

The team is still busy installing and there is still lots to get finished. I’ve been working on the Slice of Heaven website with the team (there’s more to come soon) and have only seen most of the objects as images and in spreadsheets. 

View the objects in the Slice of Heaven exhibition on Collections Online.  

So it was fantastic to see the actual objects, beautifully displayed in the completed cases and the settings that give them context. It’s what exhibitions are all about.

Here is the bust of Ed Hillary that I talked about in an earlier post – looking magnificent.  To the right you can see the signs used to show the “dance menu” at ballroom dancing social events, popular in the 1950s.

It's New Zealand in the fifties. Copyright Te Papa, 2010.

It's New Zealand in the fifties. Copyright Te Papa, 2010.

I was keen to see the “green grass” up close and get to walk on it. (I resisted the urge to roll though). I got my first look at the fun and quirky displays in the “Home-grown” section of the exhibition.  

Explore everyday objects through the years in Home-grown. Copyright Te Papa, 2010.

Explore everyday objects through the years in Home-grown. Copyright Te Papa, 2010.

Visitors are going to love exploring these intricate displays of everyday objects, from different time periods across the 20th century.

Here are a few snap shots - try and work out which years they are from.

Everyday toys - from what year?. Copyright Te Papa, 2010.

Everyday toys - from what year?. Copyright Te Papa, 2010.

Is there anything here that you remember?

Does your office at home look like this?

Does your office at home look like this? Copyright Te Papa, 2010.

Maybe you still use something in here, or perhaps you just keep it in the shed?

See anything familiar here? perhaps you still use one! Copyright Te Papa, 2010.

See anything familiar here? perhaps you still use one! Copyright Te Papa, 2010.

History is about the past and how we remember it. Slice of Heaven the exhibition will be full of stories and rich memories of Aoteaora New Zealand in the 20th century.

Collections Online tour; part 1, objects

Our new version of Collections Online has much more content, types of information, and browsing possibilities than before. There’s a bit too much to explain in one post so we’re going to break it up over a series of posts. First up, the obvious, Te Papa’s Collection.

Motor Car, 1903, Peugeot, Gift of A.R. and J.D. Green, 1955

Objects
Of course a primary goal of ours is to provide access to our collections. The Collection objects currently available on Collections Online come from the range of Te Papa’s collections, with some areas represented better than others. Objects and works from the entire Art, History and Pacific collections, and much of our Taonga Maori and Photography collections, have at least a basic record online, with many having images and extended descriptions. We also have many records from our natural environment collections.  Currently there are over 150,000 records, with over 40,000 of those having images. We release more objects, images and upgraded information every day.

In this new version of Collection Online we’ve added a few features to better describe our objects:  

  • Multiple images, e.g. the Peugeot , or John Reynolds’ Cloud,  and most of these are zoomable. We’ll be looking to add other types of media soon.
  • Down the right hand side you’ll see related People, Places and Categories. We’ll talk about these individually in more detail later but in short, they add context and help you browse through to related objects and content
  • Related objects, for example images from a Photograph album
  • Just for fun, we’ve also added a randomiser. You can access this from the Collections Online home page, and we’ve also got a random object on the main Te Papa homepage.

Next entry in the Collections Online tour: Topics 

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