A nature wonderland at Norfolk Island
Head of Science Susan Waugh describes her trip to Phillip Island, a few kilometres offshore from Norfolk Island, to study the Kermadec petrel.Read more
2019-04-12
Remembering artist Bill Culbert, 1935–2019
New Zealand expatriate artist Bill Culbert passed away on 28 March 2019. Here, curator of photography Athol McCredie, and Curator of Modern & Contemporary Māori & Indigenous Art, Megan Tamati-Quennell, reflect on some aspects of Culbert’s work. Read more
2019-04-09
Conserving 2,500-year-old objects
Conservator Robert Clendon takes us through the conservation techniques he’s using on some of the international material in our collections – two Greek objects around 2,500 years old, and a 1894 copy of the famous Portland Vase.Read more
2019-04-04
Summer scholars: Working side-by-side with students
Every year, Te Papa partners with Victoria University in their Summer Research Scholarships initiative. Here, we introduce them and the projects they worked on.Read more
2019-04-01
Are Rita Angus’s goddesses hidden self-portraits?
University of Auckland student Susannah Whaley has spent her MA year intrigued by Rita Angus’s goddess portraits. As our guest blogger, she focusses on three fascinating, but little-known works, and asks whether they are self-portraits, goddesses, or both.Read more
2019-03-27
Why celebrating pride matters
Drew Hadwen, co-director of the Wellington Pride Festival 2019 (8–24 March), recently spoke to the Friends of Te Papa about the work that has gone into celebrating Pride in Aotearoa. Here, we share their speech with you.Read more
2019-03-14
Pussyhats, period poverty, and Parliament: Improving gender balance in the collections
Triggered by Suffrage 125 last year, Te Papa curators have been collecting objects around women’s rights, and researching our collections to better reveal women’s stories. One of our aims is to improve the gender balance in our collections. Here are some favourite examples from our curators.Read more
2019-03-08
Te Hēmanawa Olive Temara (10 Feb 1948 – 27 Feb 2019)
This week Te Papa lost a very significant former kaimahi | staff member, Hema Temara (Tūhoe, 10 Feb 1948 – 27 Feb 2019), who passed away in Whakatāne.Read more
2019-03-01
Seeing the museum through the eyes of our youngest learners
Museums can sometimes feel like alien spaces for young learners, a place where words like ‘play’ and ‘explore’ might not always be an immediate association. But for educator Martin Langdon, these are the key drivers he keeps in mind when designing learning programmes aimed at learners under 5-years-old.Read more
2019-02-28
Valentine’s Day: I ♥ the art of Jenny Doležel!
Valentine’s Day would be lonely indeed without a blog from Dr Mark Stocker, Curator Historical International Art. Here he explores the lovely, love-related lithographs of Jenny Doležel.Read more
2019-02-14
Backbones are overrated: Why invertebrates deserve a break
Summer research scholar Katrin O’Donnell explains why we need people to care about the weird and wonderful invertebrate animals which make up the majority of the planet’s biomass, and her investigations into how invertebrate scientists around the world can engage with non-scientists and vice-versa.Read more
2019-02-12
Valleys Between: A game to raise environmental awareness
Natural history researcher Rodrigo Salvador is out and about looking for initiatives that join science and pop culture. He did not need to venture too far in Welly to find this one, though.Read more
2019-02-07
Help us nail these 17th century bugs!
This is the second part to Dr Mark Stocker’s series of blogs asking you to help identify a number of butterflies, moths, and other insects in a series of 17th century prints by Anglo-Czech etcher Wenceslaus Hollar.Read more
2019-01-29
Wall of found objects: Yuk King Tan on her sculpture of waxed gifts
Yuk King Tan and Emma Ng discuss King Tan’s The New Temple – I give so that you may give, I give so that you may go and stay away.Read more
2019-01-24
The museum as marae ātea – He whare kōrero tonu
In an ongoing series of guest speakers, the Mātauranga Māori curatorial team was recently joined by our previous manager, Dr Wayne Ngata (Te Aitanga-a-Hauiti, Ngāti Ira, Ngāti Porou). Mātauranga Māori curator Matariki Williams recounts his kōrero.Read more
2019-01-15