This blog was written by Caroline Bost, Te Papa Intern on the little penguin project, with help from volunteers Blandine Jurie and Yukiko Shimada for text and images: Here is a bit of news about our first fieldwork week on Motuara Island. Motuara Island is an island located in the QueenRead more
Recently I’ve been watching a BBC TV mini series about a doomed photography archive – Shooting the Past. The series was released in 1999 and I don’t know how I missed seeing it then but I was busy writing a dissertation on colonial photography (or maybe it didn’t even get played onRead more
This morning Te Papa farewelled the exhibition of tukutuku panels which are to be installed at the United Nations Headquarters in New York early next year. The woven panels, which have been on display at Te Papa since July, were commissioned by former Minister of Māori Affairs Dr Pita SharplesRead more
Today in the Pacific Cultures Collections storeroom, we were visited by some of Wellington’s hip hop historians. The visit was in preparation for their hosting of a historic Back of House Hip Hop Tour this coming Sunday 2 November. As part of Family Fun: Aotearoa Hip Hop 101 special guest hip hopRead more
Earlier this year I travelled to Auckland Art Gallery with one of Te Papa’s masterpieces, Colin McCahon’s Northland Panels, 1958, which is the centrepiece of the exhibition Modern Paints Aoteraroa. This was the first time in 25 years that the iconic painting has travelled to another institution, and the firstRead more
Since we blogged 2 weeks ago, the Te Papa team working on little penguins has started a second front of activity in Marlborough, based at Motuara Island in Queen Charlotte Sound. Almost all of the birds from the Wellington Harbour nests have had their tags retrieved, and are going to eitherRead more
There is so much to admire about this beautiful ambrotype recently acquired for Te Papa’s photography collection – look at the couple’s cheeks touched up by hand in pink, their jewellery and clothing. I also like that the couple are posed in front of the photographer’s studio interior wall fitted with a dado rail (centre behindRead more
Not only do south-western Australian orchids have imaginative common names but their flowers are arguably some of the most stunning in this biodiversity hotspot. The flowers of the 320 or so species have a wide range of colours and shapes. Many orchids don’t produce nectar to attract insects to spreadRead more
If you have recently travelled along SH1 between Wellington and Paekakariki you may have noticed that some of the roadside cuttings and banks are tinged with pink. The culprit is the daisy pink ragwort (Senecio glastifolius). Pink ragwort is native to a small area of coastline in South Africa and was first recordedRead more
Recently I travelled to Stratford to attend the opening of Te Papa’s touring art exhibition Gordon Walters: Koru which is currently on show at the Percy Thomson Gallery. The exhibition includes a selection of the artist’s iconic koru works from the mid-1950s until the 1980s from Te Papa’s collection. ItRead more
Four of Te Papa’s ‘Berry Boys’ were amongst the 8500 men who left with the Main Body of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force on 16 October 1914. These men, in their fresh uniforms, were draper George Hornig (above, in a photo taken in 1912), cabinetmaker Roy Houchen, and Frank Barber, fromRead more
New Zealand has a new tree fern – kind of. Te Papa Research Fellow Patrick Brownsey and I have recently recognised a subspecies within the stumpy tree fern, tuokura, Dicksonia lanata. The new name is Dicksonia lanata subspecies hispida. It is only kind of a new tree fern, as it wasRead more
‘Sometimes they marched with fixed bayonets and you saw this silver ribbon come winding through the crowd…’ Ena Ryan This wonderful, almost cinematic line comes from an interview with Ena Ryan, a Wellingtonian who was born in 1908. In the interview she vividly recalls the outbreak of the First World War, andRead more
Tēnā ano tātou – thank you for all of your support for last week’s blog! It is such an extraordinary privilege working with our Kaumatua and Kuia and sharing their kōrero with you. Feeding back the response from all the readers is ‘icing on the cake’. Here is our next instalment byRead more
By the Art Curators at Te Papa: Sarah Farrar, Athol McCredie, Lissa Mitchell, Chelsea Nichols, Justine Olsen, Rebecca Rice, Mark Stocker and Megan Tamati-Quennell The recent passing of Jonathan Mane-Wheoki, CNZM, (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Kurī, Te Aupōuri, Pākehā), the national museum’s Head of Arts & Visual Culture, leaves not only TeRead more
