Friends of Te Papa invite you to an illustrated talk exploring how museums across Central and Eastern Europe express national identity shaped by centuries of empire, conflict, and cultural change.

Drawing on his recent journey along the Danube, committee member Richard Norman reflects on what these international examples can offer Aotearoa as our own cultural sector navigates financial pressures and strategic choices.

This session blends travel stories, striking visuals, and thoughtful questions about the future of arts and culture in New Zealand.

Join distinguished arts educator Charlie Hall, Director of the long‑running John Hall Venice Course and a specialist in Italian art and culture, for an illuminating journey through the extraordinary life of Peggy Guggenheim. With decades of experience lecturing for Christie’s Education, The Serpentine Gallery, Kirker Holidays, and Soho House, Charlie brings a rare blend of scholarship, storytelling, and on‑the‑ground insight from his work in London and Italy.

Be among the first to experience He Toi Whakairo: The Art of Māori Carving, a landmark exhibition bringing together seven centuries of artistry from Te Papa’s collections. Featuring 147 taonga spanning the 1300s to today, the exhibition reveals whakairo as both a deeply ancestral practice and a vibrant, continually evolving artform. Visitors will encounter an extraordinary range of forms and materials, offering powerful insight into the skill, innovation, and cultural identity embodied in Māori carving. Friends’ members are warmly invited to enjoy this exclusive preview before the exhibition opens to the public.

For the Love of Letterpress offers a behind‑the‑scenes tour of Wai‑te‑ata Press with Sydney Shep, showcasing the studio’s remarkable letterpress technologies and the only working collection of Chinese full‑form heritage type in the southern hemisphere. Visitors will explore unique presses, wood and metal type, and a range of typographic treasures that illuminate the craft and history of printing. As Reader in Book History and a practising printer, Sydney brings deep expertise in book history and print culture to this engaging, hands‑on experience.

Join Te Papa curators for an intimate floor talk and behind‑the‑scenes visit exploring the remarkable botanical legacy of Nancy Adams, one of Aotearoa’s most influential botanists and illustrators. Begin at the vibrant Nancy Adams: The Art of Seaweed display, where her artworks, specimens, and research come to life through expert insight. Then head back of house to the herbarium to view Adams’ original collections and discover how her lifelong study of native flora continues to shape our understanding of New Zealand’s botanical heritage.

Join the Friends for a relaxed and inspiring afternoon at Toi MAHARA, exploring the gallery together on a specially organised guided tour. It’s the perfect chance to bring a friend, enjoy lunch on the Kāpiti Coast, and experience the gallery as a community. With highlights including The Expatriates; Francis Hodgkins, Peter Campbell and Graham Percy, and selected works from the nationally significant Field Collection, this tour offers a vivid snapshot of the art currently on display.

Karin Montgomery invites us into a world where close observation, ecological care, and deep craft come together in extraordinary ways. In this special artist talk, she will share the stories, research, and creative processes behind her celebrated works — from botanical histories to the quiet life of her inner‑city garden. It’s a rare opportunity to hear directly from an artist whose practice reveals how attentive making can transform the familiar into something richly layered and new.

Dr Chris McKeown invites us into a new exploration of how artists create not just images or objects, but invitations to notice shaped by care, presence, and attention. Drawing on photography, neuroscience, and lived creative practice, he reflects on how art can become a meeting place between maker and viewer, supporting wellbeing and spiritual growth for both. Through stories, conversations, and contemplative creative work, this talk considers how slowing down and truly noticing may allow something meaningful to be transferred, not merely seen.

Join Te Papa audio describer Judith Jones, and curators from the art team, to learn about the craft of audio description. Using words to bring an artwork to life, audio description supports meaningful experience for blind and low vision visitors. It can also help us all look more closely and more deeply. We’ll start by talking about what audio description is and how it’s developed, before taking visitors up to Toi Art to experience newly-written descriptions of artworks on display.

Professor James Belich, ONZM, one of Aotearoa’s most influential historians, joins Friends of Te Papa for a special talk exploring how museums shape national identity, historical understanding, and our place in the world.

Lady Painters follows nine extraordinary women who found solace, purpose and creative joy in capturing Aotearoa’s strange and beautiful flora during the colony’s earliest decades. Drawing on diaries, letters and journals, Bee Dawson uncovers their stories of immigration, resilience, botanical discovery and the role art played in sustaining them through hardship and change. In this richly researched talk, Bee brings these pioneering artists vividly to life, illuminating the world they helped shape with brush, curiosity and courage.

Amanda Herries, an archaeologist and former Museum of London curator, has spent her career exploring cross‑cultural artistic exchange, fundraising for arts organisations, and curating exhibitions from Japanese gardens to the Scottish Colourists. In her lecture, she shares the remarkable story behind the Public Catalogue Foundation (now ArtUK), drawing on her own experience cataloguing thousands of artworks to reveal how a once‑doubted project became an essential resource for researchers and art lovers alike.