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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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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Models in full war paint and extravagant hairstyles strutted their stuff through clouds of dry ice in time to pulsating music… showing different garments including masks, hats and sunglasses, as well as more orthodox attire.                                                                                                                        Peter Gibbs, The New Zealand Listener The above quote comes from a review ofRead more

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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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I’m a co-author of a just-published scientific paper examining the evolution and classification of the Arthropteris climbing ferns. The paper was a real international collaboration, involving authors from China, Netherlands, France, United Kingdom, and New Zealand. It is unclear how many species there are of Arthropteris – probably somewhere betweenRead more

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Te Papa’s Pacific Cultures staff are blogging daily to mark the annual Tongan Language Week.  The theme for this year is Fakakoloa ‘o Aotearoa ‘aki ‘etau Hiva Fakatonga – Enriching Aotearoa with Tongan Music. Today’s blog by Rachel Yates (Pacific Cultures curator), is inspired by Australian Tongan sisters’ Vika and LindaRead more

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I don’t do plant-free holidays, and one of the species I wanted to photograph during my recent Northland holiday was the tiny and rare Phylloglossum drummondii. This diminutive plant has a Nationally Critical conservation ranking, because of its low numbers and the destruction of its swamp habitat. Finding it necessitates a winterRead more

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On 24 August, 2013 The WOW Factor, which celebrates 25 years of the WearableArt™ Awards, opened to the public. The exhibition features over 25 fantastic garments from the award’s history, and for the next 25 weeks I am going to endeavour to post a ‘Wearable of the Week’. ‘The Wearables’Read more

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In a normal year, the answer to this question would be ‘one’ – namely Lanky*, Wellington Zoo’s oldest resident. Lanky is an Australian pelican, and is the only captive pelican in New Zealand. He has been at the zoo since 1978, and is reported to be 37 years old. ButRead more

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Te Papa and Auckland Museum scientists discuss how to proceed with the sunfish dissection. Photographer: Ruth Hendry © Te Papa

What have we learnt from our day of sunfish science? Sunfish are very hard to sex! The best we can say is that it’s a boy. We think. We’ll have to wait for the test results to determine conclusively whether it’s male or female. Jellyfish are delicious Although we can’tRead more

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