A sepia coloured photo of a woman resting her head on one hand.

The We Are Not Your Dusky Maidens! project began with Flora: Celebrating Our Botanical World, a trans-curatorial publication exploring Te Papa’s botanical collections. Published in 2023, the book drew connections between plants, people, and place, led through the collaborative work of Te Papa editors and curators Rebecca Rice (Art), ClaireRead more

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In: History, Pacific
A blue floral pattern has been appliqued onto square of white fabric with a blue border.

Flowers are a central part of Pacific identity – especially for women. Archival representations of women and flowers centre on the trope of the Dusky Maiden. However, Professor Yvonne Underhill-Sem (Nga Pu Toru, Alofi North) shows that Pacific women are reclaiming their relation to flowers, and in the process, revealingRead more

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A person in a silver outfit is walking down a catwalk. The room is in a blue hue.

The trailblazing Kiki House of Marama will be hosting the Grand Kiki House of Marama Ball at Te Papa on Saturday 4 October. The House goes into detail about the history of the Ballroom scene internationally and in Aotearoa New Zealand, who the Kiki House of Marama are, and whatRead more

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A cream-coloured stamp with a green border and rust-coloured image of a bird sitting in a tree.

The Manumea, or tooth-billed pigeon (Didunculus strigirostris), is an endemic bird of Sāmoa, currently on the brink of extinction. How can museums help to protect this national treasure? In this blog, Research Assistant Annika Sung examines how Te Papa’s collections can teach us about the Manumea and its entwined relationship to various aspects of Sāmoan life and culture.Read more

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Eight people are looking at a tapa costume in a glass case. One of the people is talking about it.

In 2021, with the Te Papa Foundation’s support, Te Papa acquired a rare book of tapa cloth samples, one of many assembled by Alexander Shaw in 1787. At the wānanga in 2023, artists were given the opportunity to respond to the Shaw book and exchange knowledge between tapa experts from acrossRead more

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Ten women are standing and facing the camera and either smiling at each other, or the camera.

In 1787, a series of books composed of samples of barkcloths collected from Hawai‘i, Tahiti and Tonga were published by Alexander Shaw. James Cook collected the cloths during his voyages to the Pacific, and while the books contain only fragments of much larger creations, they highlight the variety of textures and artistry attained through the practices, knowledge and skills of Pacific peoples. Mātauranga Māori Curator Isaac Te Awa and Co-Director Pauline Reynolds take us through some of the makers’ reactions to the Shaw book at the recent wānanga in Tahiti.Read more

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In: Art, Māori, Pacific

In 2021, Te Papa acquired a rare book of tapa cloth (bark cloth) samples cut from larger pieces of tapa collected on Captain Cook’s voyages to the Pacific (1768, 1772, 1776) and represent tapa-making practices from various islands including Hawai‘i, Tahiti and Tonga. Rachel Yates (former Curator Pacific Cultures) initiated the collecting proposal and one of her key intentions behind acquiring the sampler was to ensure that it would be accessible to Pacific communities. In the first of four blogs about this kaupapa, Senior Curator Pacific Histories and Cultures Sean Mallon introduces the continuation of this project and a wānanga that happened in Tahiti in late 2023.Read more

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As part of the Sāmoan Multiplicities research project, Research Assistant Annika Sung curated an exhibition at The New Zealand Portrait Gallery using Te Papa’s historical photography collection and the works of contemporary artists. Here, Annika takes us through the work involved in the exhibition and the results. This post was first published on IndeGen, 2 April, 2024. Read more

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In: Pacific, Photography

Two Te Papa botanists recently spent a week collecting ferns on Lord Howe Island. They were adeptly guided by Lord Howe Island museum curator Ian Hutton and joined by Daniel Ohlsen from the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria. The natural history of Lord Howe Island was introduced in an earlier blogRead more

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I recently spent a week on Norfolk Island collecting ferns. One non-fern plant I was particularly keen to see was harakeke (Phormium tenax), on which I’ve done recent genetic work. On Norfolk Island it is known as flax, so I’ll use that name here. What I hadn’t appreciated before the trip was the significance of flax to the settlement of Norfolk Island.Read more

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Three of our botanists recently spent a week on Norfolk Island collecting ferns with colleagues from the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria. Our fern findings will be detailed in a future blog post but here we discuss interesting flowering plants that we saw – some of which were very familiar to us as New Zealanders but others were completely new!Read more

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