Riki Gooch, musician and producer, in the Paperskin exhibition

Music and museum exhibitions haven’t always gone together – all part of the old idea that a museum should be a solemn and silent place. Today, sound compositions in exhibitions are being used as part of the visitor experience. They offer a different way to approach the things on display – oneRead more

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In: Pacific

In March 2009, Te Papa was gifted a small but significant collection of objects from Derek J. Wilson. This collection included two Tongan fangufangu or nose flutes that were made from bamboo. Historically, fangufangu were used to awaken the Tongan royalty from their sleep. The newly acquired fangufangu, have intactRead more

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On Tuesday 20 July 2010 Gus Fisher ONZM passed away at the age of 89. While many people today recognise Gus Fisher as one of the country’s most generous and enthusiastic arts patron Gus first rose to national prominence in the world of high fashion. Gus Fisher was the creativeRead more

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In: Art, History

Hello all!  Welcome to my first post here on the Te Papa Blog.  My name is Cindy Lee and I’m an intern working in the Object’s Conservation Lab at the Tory Street Conservation Laboratories.  This internship is a part of my degree requirements for  my Masters Degree in Archaeological andRead more

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Luke and Anton fish up the North Island in our Te Huka ā Tai Whānau Day | (c) Te Papa

On Wednesday, several children came to Te Huka ā Tai at Te Papa and fished up the Te Ika a Māui (the North Island).  And why not? After a long and lovely day soaking in some of the scariest, hairiest, chilling and thrilling myths and legends Aotearoa has produced, it justRead more

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In: Māori

The earliest memory I have of my youth takes me back to approximately age three. I was finishing the weekly “playgroup” session with a few neighbours my age which had been held at my house that time. My mother was getting ready to drive the other kids home when myRead more

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Collections Online mapping

Mapping the collections This week we added a new feature to Collections Online, our first efforts to map our collection objects, specimens and other resources.  As you browse the collection, the Related Places section at the right of the page will generate a map of the places related to the collection itemRead more

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In: Art, Collections Online, Pacific

Paperskin – the art of tapa cloth exhibition is full of many wonderful tapa artworks.  But one Tongan tapa cloth (ngatu) in Te Papa’s collection is amazing because of its size – it is more than 22 metres long and over 4 metres wide. We have never been able to displayRead more

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Aptenodytes forsteri

Since we released the new version of Collections Online  in July last year we’ve made the odd fix, or a new feature here and there. You probably don’t notice them but hopefully they’ve made your browsing experience a bit easier.  However recently we’ve done a couple of things we thought wereRead more

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In: Collections Online

Smack bang in the middle of Matariki, the Maori New Year and all the creative (indoor!) activities that are taking place at the Matariki Festival at Te Papa, World Refugee Day is one of our key times to celebrate and discuss the diversity of our beautiful people and places, and theRead more

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In: History

We have just described a new species of Tmesipteris fork fern. Fork ferns are odd looking and only distantly related to other ferns. We now recognise five species in New Zealand. There are only about 15 species around the world, with Australasia their strong-hold. The new species has been namedRead more

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In: Science

Have a look at this picture of New Zealand’s rarest stamp – see anything unusual about it? It’s a bit hard to see because of the post marks but the centre scene is actually upside down.  It’s known as the Taupo Invert and it’s the only survivor out of theRead more

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In: History