100 years ago in the early hours of 20 December 1915 the last party of New Zealand men left Anzac Cove, Gallipoli. The campaign was over. For those of us who worked on the exhibition, Gallipoli: The scale of our war, the stories of the Anzacs’ tenuous presence there fromRead more
Do you have that end-of-the-year feeling? Everything compressing and accelerating towards a sense of an ending? I love walking through Te Papa’s art galleries on Level 5, especially at this time of the year. Ngā Toi | Arts Te Papa is an escape from the everyday, from schedules and deadlinesRead more
‘This is very different from the unfeeling and emotionally distant historical coverage of a war. I felt a weight in my lower chest as I learned about the stories and suffering of the people, witnessed their rage and despair sculpted on their faces, and felt the ground tremble under myRead more
It was one of the best days this year for me: walking along the vast, luminous west coast beach with jeweller Alan Preston. He strolled, collecting shells with an eye on the tide and recalled Colin McCahon’s influence on his work, White Foreshore. McCahon’s years at Muriwai are reflected in hisRead more
Uniformity: Cracking the dress code has just opened on level 4 of Te Papa in the Eyelights Gallery. This time we’ve focused on uniforms, the influence of uniforms on fashion, and elements of uniformity in the way people dress. A highlight of the exhibition is Corporal Willie Apiata, VC’s combatRead more
How does jewellery addess issues of identity? What’s the connection between a cruise ship and an ice skating rink? How does photography expose events from the past? You can find the answers to these and other questions in the video interviews with artists whose work features in Collecting Contemporary . Here’s a glimpse of the artists we’ve filmed: OverRead more
All we know about him is a name written on a glass negative: ‘Hart’. Ever since I first saw him I have kept his photograph on my wall. He has been the inspiration for many hours of image research for the World War I film that screens in Te Papa’s C20th history exhibition, Slice of Heaven. Using silent archiveRead more
On Friday I posted a blog on the subject of darning inspired by the items of clothing that survived the Depression loaned by Rosemary McLeod for the Slice of Heaven exhibition. A couple of comments in response to that made me think further. My mother taught me to start a darn with slipstitchRead more
“For over half a century I wrote about and taught the history of this country. However, my reasons for standing here today owe more to a sense of belonging, of having enjoyed a long life shaped by twentieth-century New Zealand.” Bill Oliver at opening of Slice of Heaven. © TeRead more
It’s just 2 weeks now since Slice of Heaven opened and the word from Te Papa’s hosts is that it’s “what New Zealanders have been waiting for!” This is my first blog – ever. I was one of the team working behind the scenes to bring the stories from 20th CenturyRead more
