Take a Transcendent Train Journey
New Zealand by train has made The New York Times ‘52 Places to Go in 2024’ list, coming in at number four. “Road-tripping across New Zealand via camper van is a free-spirited traveller’s dream,” Stephanie…
Tag Archives: Te Papa Tongarewa
Cultural Champ Ken Gorbey Relishes Ninth Decade
Arts alumnus Ken Gorbey tells Megan Fowlie, reporting for Auckland University’s Ingenio magazine, that he is treating his ninth decade as he would a museum exhibition: he’s determined to make it an engaging experience. The…
German Museum Returns Tattooed Māori Skull
The Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum of world cultures in Cologne, Germany has returned a tattooed Māori skull, which had been in its collection for 110 years, to a delegation representing the Museum of New Zealand Te…
Capital Freebie Tourism Activities
“Whether you’re a fan making a pilgrimage to the city where the films were made, or you have no interest whatsoever in dwarfs and goblins, there’s plenty to do in Wellington. For free,”…
Treasures Travel to Beijing
Te Papa is sending an exhibition of pounamu to China, where it expects a flurry of interest among museumgoers who haven’t seen how other cultures work with the precious stone. ‘Kura Pounamu: Treasured Stone…
Deservedly Great Painter
New Zealand artist Don Binney, best known for his striking emblematic paintings of birds, has died in Auckland aged 72. Binney worked in oil, acrylic, charcoal, ink and carbon pencil. Many public collections feature…
Every Living Species Accounted For
In a world-first, New Zealand scientists have accounted for every animal, plant, fungi or micro-organism – more than 56,200 living species and 14,700 fossil species – ever to live in New Zealand over the…
Heirlooms Of Past For Future
‘Maori — Their Treasures Have a Soul,’ an exhibition of Maori art and artifacts at the Quai Branly Museum in Paris on through 22 January, juxtaposes ancestral heirlooms with contemporary art, architecture, photography, film…
By Heck It’s Back
One of the world’s smallest and rarest marine dolphins, the Hector’s Dolphin, has been seen in Wellington Harbour, more than two years after the last sighting. The person who spotted the dolphin said it…
Living Fossil Bewitches
Te Papa scientist Vincent Zintzen and colleagues have been studying the hunting behaviour of the hagfish — or snot-eel — a blind sea creature partway between fish and worm, with a spinal cord but…
New Zealand in Vogue
New Zealand is known for its edgy fashion exports such as Kate Sylvester and Zambesi, but a retrospective exhibition on now at Te Papa reveals a lesser known secret: the land of the long…
Solemn Repatriation
A mummified and tattooed Maori head has been returned to New Zealand after spending 136 years in a Normandy museum. This is the first to be returned of a total of 16 in France….
Dignity for Relics
“For decades, New Zealand has campaigned for museums to repatriate the mummified and heavily-tattooed heads of Maori warriors held in collections worldwide — now it must decide what to do with the gruesome but…
Wind Assisted Travel
When in Wellington “you don’t need energy to walk as you’ll be assisted by the wind,” discovers Malay Mail reporter Dominah Devadas. Devadas writes that asides from the wind, “Wellington is home to magnificent…
Return to the Homeland
The remains of 12 Maori – known as koiwi tangata – were recently returned to New Zealand having been part of the Welsh national collection at National Museum Cardiff. Research has shown that the…
New beginnings in Alaska
Former director of natural environment at Te Papa Carol Diebel will begin a new role overseeing the University of Alaska Museum of the North in October. In addition to her work leading Te Papa’s…
Charismatic Leader
Chief executive of New Zealand’s national museum, Te Papa, Dr Seddon Bennington, 61, died on July 15 tramping in the Tararua Ranges, a sight Dr Bennington admired from his office window, “frequently think of…
On the Cheap
Rotorua hotpool Kerosene Creek, Rangitoto Island, Waitomo Caves, the Tongariro Crossing and Te Papa are the “five best freebies” on offer for tourists “with strained budgets” writes journalist Xavier La Canna who has lived…
Guardians surface in DC
Te Papa exhibition ‘Whales | Tohor?’ has opened at Washington DC’s National Geographic Museum. The exhibition features whale specimens including an 18-metre-long male sperm whale skeleton. The cultural significance of whales to the peoples…
Investigating a Colossus
Te Papa’s colossal squid, the largest ever caught, has created a worldwide media furore making headlines from South Africa and Germany, to Iran and Uruguay. Very little is known about colossal squid; only…
Aotearoa on the Cheap
The Bangkok Post takes a budget tour of NZ “that in some countries could easily pass for luxury”. Spending just fifty NZ dollars a day, the travel writer visits Wellington’s Botanic Gardens, Te Papa,…
Sacred Remains Returned
A Scottish museum has returned its collection of tattooed Maori heads to NZ after housing them for more than 180 years. The nine toi moko were acquired by the University of Aberdeen’s Marischal Museum…
Not Just a Pretty Face
The Guardian urges travellers to make time for NZ’s urban centres, as well as its world-famous mountains, fjords and forests: “There are some excellent attractions, delicious restaurants, cool harbourside bars and an interesting architectural history if you…
Homeward Bound
The Glasgow City Council has officially returned the preserved heads of three unidentified Maori warriors to delegates from Te Papa Tongarewa. The moko mokai had variously been gifted to the Scottish city by collectors of antiquities…
A Heartfelt Plea
The Wellington Racing Club has asked the help of PM Helen Clark in borrowing the heart of legendary racehorse Phar Lap from Australia’s national museum in Canberra. “I’ve written to the prime minister to see if she…
Biennale buzz
Art collective et al is New Zealand’s representative at the Venice Biennale with its installation The Fundamental Practice. Central to et al.’s work is an exploration of the human tendency to establish truths and…
Making History with Music
NZ composer John Psathas provided much of the music for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Athens Games, including the climactic moment when the Olympic flame was lit. Born in NZ to Greek…
Moko Mokai Return Home
Three preserved heads (moko mokai) of Maori warriors have been returned to NZ by the Kelingrove Art Gallery in Glasgow. The action comes after a worldwide search for Maori remains by Te Papa Tongarewa. Maori specialists…
Edge Adventurer
BBC notes the NZ connection in Shackleton’s legendary voyage, prior to the opening of Te Papa’s Antarctic Heroes – The Race to the South Pole exhibition. Kiwi Frank Worsley successfully navigated Shackleton’s boat -…
Edge espressoholics
The Star attributes Wellington’s creativity and can-do attitude to its extraordinary topography and world-ranking caffeine intake. “Wellington, the ‘windy city,’ definitely enjoys one of the most challenging locations on earth. ‘Here’s your brief,’ the…
Blown Away
Scotsman takes a bracing tour of Wellington, “New Zealand’s Windy City.’ Highlights include Te Papa (“spacious and informative, an emporium of knowledge”), Old St Paul’s (a cosy bijou of splendour”), a 4WD circuit of the coastal seal…
East-side story
Te Papa’s ‘Japonism’ exhibition reviewed in August’s Australian Vogue. A joint collaboration with the Kyoto Costume Institute, the show explores the influence of Japan on Western fashion from 1860 to the present. ‘Japonism’ -…
Weta’s Secrets Revealed
Te Papa’s record-breaking Lord of the Rings exhibition opens at London’s Science Museum in September – it’s only European showing before travelling to Singapore, Sydney, and Boston. The exhibition focuses on Weta Digital’s FX…
Blown Away by Windy City Styles
“Dull (never)” The Australian takes in the sights, sounds and tastes of Wellington in a glowing weekend feature. On a “perfect summer’s day” they breeze through cultural institutions (Pataka Museum and Te Papa), funky fashion (House of Hank,…
Premium quality: South Seas art
Aotearoa-Pasifika artist Michael Tuffery talks to the ABC about recycling identity. Tuffery has recently completed an artist’s residency at Artspace Mackay in Queensland, Australia, where he ran a series of workshops for aspiring artists…
Middle Earth to the Masses
Te Papa’s Lord of the Rings exhibition (opening 19 December) is set to go global. The interactive collection of costumes, props, sets, and gadgetry mounts a two year international tour from February 2002, which includes stop-offs…
Fusion Capital
The Independent takes a tour through the capital’s cultural collage: fusion cooking, Te Papa, cafes, Mansfield, transexual MPs, colonial history and Pacific awakenings, and finds in the cosmopolitan brew that “It is hard to know which flavour…
The Future of History
Thematic arrangement, fresh technology and festival atmosphere put Te Papa at the cutting edge of history.
How to remember the holocaust?
As conceptual architect of the “extraordinarily popular Museum of New Zealand Te Papa” Ken Gorbey has earned a reputation as a world leader in museum innovation – head hunted to be project director of…
Museum commerce
“In terms of the interconnections between commerce and culture, the most interesting example is the new national museum of New Zealand, called Te Papa … seen as a model of current museological thinking and…
Kiwi Museum Authority Leads Berlin’s Jewish Museum
Ken Gorbey of Te Papa, “New Zealand’s enormously successful national museum,” has been appointed artistic leader of of one of the new Berlin’s emblematic projects: the Daniel Liebeskind designed Jewish Museum. Gorbey’s challenge it…
Black Holes, Time Travel and Ramjets
Vanessa Collingridge explores the cosmic questions with a little help from Te Papa: “The nearest I’ve ever been to wormholes as entertainment was in a New Zealand museum …”
