This blog provides an excellent opportunity not only for us to share with you, but  for you to share with each other. How do you use our museum as a learning resource? What do you find to be best practice? Why are museum and gallery experiences important for your tamariki? Our second storyRead more

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In: Art, Education

With the Aztec Family Fiesta event happening this Sunday (29th September 2013) we thought it wise to have a practice of our activities! Presenting the efforts of Audience Engagement and Te Papa Hosts: Thanks to BodyFX for the face art training! Mask creation will be occuring between 12pm – 1pm in theRead more

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In: Art, Behind the scenes

How on earth would you feed a city of over 200,000 people when the land around you was a swampy lake? Seems like an impossible task, but the Aztec managed it by creating floating gardens known as chinampas, then they farmed them intensively. These ingenious creations were built up fromRead more

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In: History
Snarge identified as long tailed skua. Photo by Alan Tennyson.

Birds can cause serious damage to aircraft. A recent example is the 2009 US Airways flight that hit a flock of Canada geese on take-off and had to make an emergency landing on the Hudson River. In this case no one was seriously injured but there are many examples ofRead more

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In: Science

One of the sections in the current incarnation of the Ngā Toi, Arts Te Papa exhibition showcases a selection from Te Papa’s collection of Australian Aboriginal art. The show Gifted: Aboriginal Art 1971 – 2011 includes Papunya Tula paintings created in the 1970’s in a community near Alice Springs withRead more

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In: Art

‘There is a whole world inside me. I often dream of something deep and colourful which moves and which is very mysterious. There are many corners, strange places, folds and holes. I have an enormous need to express that world.’ Marjolein Dallinga I love the above quote from Marjolein Dallinga.Read more

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In: History

Brian Brake took some intriguing photographs of people in pubs and bars. At the Randwick racecourse bar in Sydney he used Kodachrome to capture the garish colours and dramatic expressions. On another occasion he used black and white 35mm roll film to create a different effect with his images ofRead more

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In: Photography
Tlaloc, Aztec God of Rain

This week you may have noticed a blue goggly eyed face with vicious fangs staring back at you. This is the face of Tláloc, the Aztec god of rain. In the form of a beautiful blue vessel recently flown in from Mexico, he is the face of a new exhibitionRead more

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In: History

One of the best things about working in the cultural sector is getting to meet amazing people. Dame Suzie Moncrieff, the founder of the World of WearableArt™, is just one of those people – gutsy, visionary and determind. This week we get to share her. On Saturday 21 September fromRead more

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In: History

Theme: Fakakoloa ‘o Aotearoa ‘aki ‘etau lea mo e hiva faka-Tonga. Enriching Aotearoa with our language and Tongan music. In this final blogpost for Tongan language week we have another guest contribution from the Tongan community. It is written by Kolokesa Mahina-Tuai  who was a former Pacific Cultures curator atRead more

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In: Pacific

Alan Reynolds’s Saga is one of the paintings currently on display in Te Papa’s Ngā Toi exhibition. It is described as a winter landscape, with dead plants bursting from the frozen earth. Ngā Toi’s On The Wall description. Amongst the bleakness, my eyes are drawn to just-a-little-right of centre, whereRead more

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In: Art

Te Papa’s Pacific Cultures staff have been blogging daily to mark Tongan Language Week.  The theme for this year is Fakakoloa ‘o Aotearoa ‘aki ‘etau Hiva Fakatonga – Enriching Aotearoa with Tongan Music. However, today’s blogpost is from a guest writer, Suliana Grace Vea from Wellington. Malō e lelei! Ko hoku hingoa koRead more

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In: Pacific