With the World of Wearable Art Show (WOW) in town, and fantastic costume art in Te Papa’s store windows, we were inspired see what creative costumes we have in our photography collection.Read more
Join me, Cat Williams, over the coming months as I investigate and conserve one of Te Papa’s recent acquisitions – a painted wooden shield from Papua New Guinea. Yes, it is decorated with The Phantom! Items in our national collection have fascinating biographies and often there is still much toRead more
Lace is fascinating for its changing and divisive role in history. Desired for its beauty and admired for its technical expertise, the best quality was restricted in use for monarchs and nobility. While sumptuary laws during the 1500 and early 1600s claimed to protect local industries, lace actually helped identifyRead more
Finding a new bird species for their country of residence is the holy grail for many birdwatchers. Over the last decade, new species have been detected in New Zealand at an average rate of one every 15 months. The finding of two new bird species within 2 days by the same team of observers was unprecedented – but that is what happened.Read more
My name is Pania, I’m the freshman. Straight out of the classroom, I had never worked in a Museum before, let alone the museum of all museums – Te Papa!Read more
Tuesday 27 Sep was an exciting day for the History team, as we welcomed descendants of prominent nineteenth-century Wellington entrepreneur William Barnard Rhodes and accepted two remarkable items into our collection. Rhodes’ great, great, great grandson Rupert Ryle-Hodges travelled from England to present to Te Papa a silk brocade weddingRead more
Bottoms have been in the news again lately. The conversation has been around what must be the 21st century’s most famous derrière, that of American celebrity Kim Kardashian. Indeed, in May she received a Webby award for ‘breaking the internet’ – a feat achieved with a bare-bottomed shoot for Paper Magazine. More recently British actress Helen Mirren chimed in,Read more
Our fishes team have won with the highest award for zoological publishing – the first time a Kiwi book has even achieved this honour.Read more
As we near the end of Queer History Month, I’ve been thinking about how objects at Te Papa work together to illuminate aspects of LGBTQI+ life in New Zealand.Read more
In this post, we hear from Mia Wynyard, kaiako at Kiwi Kids ECC. Let’s find out what the ‘It’s a Bug’s Life’ project has meant for this Centre one year on… We are one year on from our ‘It’s a Bug’s Life’ experience and we can’t express just how much our thinkingRead more
The ‘It’s a Bug’s Life’ education resource is on its way – but what has been the impact of this project so far? In this post, we hear from Imagine Childcare – one of our three ECE partnership groups. They are using the expertise they gained through our research to inform their Department ofRead more
The European Splendour 1500-1800 exhibition opened on Friday 16 September in Ngā Toi | Arts Te Papa. Our friends from Pukerua Bay School Museum: Aurelia (aged 9), Paddy (aged 11), Isaac (aged 12) and their teacher Cat Lunjevich, came to visit and spent time in conversation with our curators Justine and Mark. TheyRead more
Today marks the anniversary of women’s suffrage in New Zealand. 123 years ago New Zealand became the world’s first self-governing country to grant all women the right to vote in parliamentary elections. (It is worth noting, however, that although New Zealand women were the first to be granted the vote, women inRead more
Art curator Mark Stocker introduces us to the life and work of 17th century etcher Wenceslaus Hollar.Read more
The children from Tai Tamariki Kindergarten really enjoy visiting Ngā Toi | Arts Te Papa! A favourite exhibition last season was New Zealand Photography Collected – one of the largest showing of photography collections here at Te Papa. The exhibition was based on the recent book of the same name, written by ourRead more
