Glasses of wine in hand, Friends of Te Papa filled the Soundings Theatre on 11 November for an eagerly awaited talk on Revolutionary Dress. It was the fifth in Peter McNeil’s series on fashion, in his signature style…
Read more |November 16, 2018
At the end of Garrett St we climbed the ubiquitous concrete staircase to the Hopkinson Mossman Gallery to visit their current Bill Culbert exhibition, Desk Lamp, Crash, 1998/2018. A very special chance to meet one of New Zealand’s few artists who is a household name both here and internationally. Culbert grew up in New Zealand, living […]
Read more |November 9, 2018
A special moment for Friends of Te Papa during a behind-the-scenes experience of the museum’s botanical collections was taking a close look at the very first specimens of silver fern, rewarewa and Cooks scurvy grass collected by the European naturalists Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander almost 250 years ago during Captain Cook’s first voyage to New Zealand.
Read more |November 9, 2018
Détour, the major work by Michael Parekowhai commissioned for the opening of Toi Art filled the Threshold Gallery, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Maori and Indigenous Art , Megan Tamati-Quennell, walked us through some of the ideas behind the works in the show in a talk aptly titled Generosity, conversation and collaboration.
Read more |November 9, 2018
Have you ever viewed a shark with a circular saw blade for teeth, or a dragonfly with a 75 centimetre (30 in.) wingspan? Have you walked among life size animated models of creatures that roamed the earth before the dinosaurs? You can watch such animals, many breathing and opening their monstrous jaws, at the Permian […]
Read more |October 29, 2018
Celebrating 50 years with 50 works that tell a history of art at the heart of the New Zealand identity by some of our best known artists of Aotearoa, this exhibition runs until Saturday 13 October 2018.
Read more |September 28, 2018
Earlier this year Thelma Karaitiana, Pou Tikanga in Residence at Te Papa for the Rongowhakaata iwi, welcomed a group of Friends to historic Te Hau ki Tūranga, the oldest surviving carved meeting house in the world. Thelma had us enthralled by the story of this historic whare whakairo, which is a physical record of the […]
Read more |September 27, 2018
’Women Can Do Anything’ proclaims a greatly enlarged 1970’s badge in Te Papa’s “modest but powerful exhibition commemorating 125 years since New Zealand women secured the right to vote. Curator Katie Cooper guided a large group of Friends through the exhibition and explained how the objects symbolised women’s ongoing quest for equality. Some of the […]
Read more |September 27, 2018
Dame Robin gave fascinating insights into the creation of three large tapa or bark cloth artworks, known as masi in Fiji; Something is happening here; Hear the voice; and Living in a material world, all dated 2017.
Read more |August 28, 2018
There was a sense of suppressed excitement and anticipation as guests from as far afield as Whangarei, fellow tattooists, the tattooed and those with an interest in the art, history and culture of Samoan tattooing waited for Sean Mallon to launch Tatau: A History of Samoan Tattooing.
Read more |August 14, 2018
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