Cultural safety in our mental health system is a collective responsibility
Maria Milmine is a counsellor and part of a small collective of Filipino therapists. She speaks about working in our mental health system.Read more
Maria Milmine is a counsellor and part of a small collective of Filipino therapists. She speaks about working in our mental health system.Read more
New Zealand photographer Ans Westra passed away on 26 February 2023 at age 86. Here curator of photography Athol McCredie reflects on some aspects of Westra’s work. Ans Westra was born in the Netherlands and lived in New Zealand from 1957. She settled in Wellington, working at first in aRead more
Sehar Moughal is a psychologist, activist, public speaker, teacher, and doctoral candidate at the University of Auckland. Her professional and research work centres around challenging the status quo and advocating for people on the fringes. Mehwish Mughal, who leads our Asian Mental Health project, asks Sehar what makes her so passionate about the work she does.Read more
Performing Artist, academic, and community advocate Ras Judah Seomeng migrated here, along with his family, from Botswana, Africa over 18 years ago looking for greener pastures. Currently at the beginning of his PHD candidature at Auckland University, he works for Change Makers Resettlement Forum – A Wellington-based, not-for-profit organisation that supports refugee migrants with resettlement processes, assisting them with the challenges they experience in Aotearoa New Zealand, helping them navigate a new culture and existence. Seomeng speaks about Mother Languages Day 2023 and discusses the effects of living in places where the commonly spoken language isn’t your own mother tongue or first language.Read more
People of Asian heritages face many well-documented obstacles to their mental and physical wellbeing in Aotearoa – these include dealing with anti-Asian racism, xenophobia, migration stress, and access and language difficulties (or alternatively, generational language and cultural loss). In the video below, we hear from several knowledge holders working in the Asian mental health space as they outline the key issues we need to tackle to open the door to positive change.Read more
The ongoing project Mapping the Sāmoa Collections aims to learn more about the measina Sāmoa in our collection and make them more accessible to communities. During the project, Alexander Gordon has been struck by the beauty of siapo…Read more
Today we’re excited to launch our six-part video series shining a critical spotlight on Asian mental health, with an interview with movement coach Dharshana ‘Dharshi’ Ponnampalam.Read more
In the Sāmoa Collections at Te Papa there are at least 60 measina that once belonged to soldiers who served in Sāmoa in World War One. They give us insight into the lives of Sāmoans and New Zealanders at the time, as well as the ways that the relationships between the two countries have changed over more than 100 years.Read more
The internet’s primary function as a repository for cat pictures is well established, but what about our pre-digital cat photos? Doesn’t the world deserve to see them as well? Imaging Technician Ish Doney describes the housing of the Digby/Woolf photographs collection and uses the opportunity to share some favourites.Read more
In an earlier blog, we learnt about Japanese migrant Setsuko Donnelly (b. 1933–d. 1991) and her remarkable life in Aotearoa New Zealand through the words of Setsuko’s daughter, Deb Donnelly. In the recollections gathered below, various members of the Donnelly family remember their mother and grandmother through the cherished Japanese meals (especially sukiyaki!) and cultural practices she passed on to them.Read more
Rona Chapman, Art History and Public Policy student at Victoria University, recently spent time as an intern with our Knowledge and Information and Art teams. While here, she registered over 300 of our important artwork files, and wrote about several paintings and prints that are now on show in the exhibition Hiahia Whenua | Landscape and Desire. Along the way, she found a personal connection to some of the artworks, a series of lithographs by Edith Halcombe made nearly 150 years ago.Read more
During our recent Botany Blitz where we were cracking open boxes that have been patiently waiting to be processed and databased, we catalogued many specimens, learned new things about our collections, and discovered many fascinating stories along the way. Botany Curator Heidi Meudt talks about delving into a folder ofRead more
Recently the Botany team at Te Papa dedicated a week to curating several boxes of plant specimens – we called it the Botany Blitz! Our aim was to crack open boxes that have been patiently waiting – months, years, or in some cases decades – to be processed and databased. During our Blitz, we catalogued many specimens, learned new things about our collections, and discovered many fascinating stories along the way. Botany Curator Heidi Meudt processed one of the boxes from the botanist Thomas Kirk.Read more
Many individuals from, and working alongside, Asian diasporas in Aotearoa New Zealand have consistently called for a greater focus on mental health issues. Our Asian Mental Health Project lead Mehwish Mughal offers a deeply personal insight into why the mental health concerns of Asian communities need to be addressed.Read more
As part of Mental Health Awareness Week (26 Sep – 2 Oct), researcher and activist Mehwish Mughal and Grace Gassin, Curator Asian New Zealand Histories, proudly launch our new Asian Mental Health project.Read more
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