Te Papa's blog / March 2009
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Colenso’s collections
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- This amazingly comprehensive compilation of archival material relating to William Colenso’s botanical collections has just been published by the New Zealand Native Orchid Group. The material has been researched by Ian St George and includes unpublished work by the late Bruce Hamlin (former Curator of Botany at the National Museum of New Zealand), who was [...]
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Weedy ferns
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- Chris Horne of the Wellington Botanical Society recently sent me a fern frond they collected on one of their trips. Although the frond is small and lacking the diagnostic reproductive characters, I think it is the introduced holly fern (Cyrtomium falcatum). It looks like the shining spleenwort (Asplenium oblongifolium), but the flanges, or ‘teeth’, of the [...]
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New arrival
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- Last week we took delivery of Art at Te Papa, the big book on the art collection. We are absolutely thrilled with it. The book’s official launch isn’t until next week, but Te Papa store already has an impressive display in its window. Some numbers: The book features 419 works in the collection by 300 artists. There [...]
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HMS New Zealand: ‘A grim and formidable fighting machine’
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- One hundred years ago, Britain’s Royal Navy was threatened by the modern fleet being built by Germany. In March 1909, the New Zealand Premier, Sir Joseph Ward, responded to the defence crisis by promising that New Zealand would underwrite a ship for the Royal Navy. He declared: ‘We distant sons desire to stand in any [...]
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Squid - done and dusted!
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- Breaking news from our squid fix-it team - the work is complete and we are on track to reopen the colossal squid exhibition to the public from tomorrow 21 March 2009. Yesterday Robert Clendon our Conservator and Hutch Wilco, one of our exhibition preparators finished the last few tweaks to the squid itself. They managed to draw the [...]
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One week to go….
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- James Luna’s project for One Day Sculpture will be next Thursday 26 March 8 am - 4pm at the Te Papa Amphitheatre (Soundings Theatre if the weather is bad). The project is called Urban (Almost) Rituals and it promises to be a multifaceted piece that will unfold in four acts over the 8 hours. As one [...]
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More rare maidenhair spleenwort.
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- The rare, tetraploid maidenhair spleenwort (Asplenium trichomanes subsp. quadrivalens) has only recently been rediscovered in New Zealand. Several people have contacted me with possible additional sightings. As described by the Scoop website, Jack Ritchie had a maidenhair spleenwort self-sow on a rock used to construct a water feature in his nursery, Tree Guys, in Otane. Jack [...]
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Double pumps and improved circulation
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- We have men at work on the squid tank again today. Working on the squid and its tank I caught up with Don, one of our contractors, just before he was heading off to lunch after a hard morning’s work on the tank. He’s putting in a second pump and filter system into one end of the [...]
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Disappearing hooks, or not?
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- More news from the squid tank. This morning I caught up with Robert Clendon the conservator who is looking after the work on the squid. Over the past few weeks we’ve been a bit concerned about the hooks on the tentacles and the arms. It looked as though the hooks could be disappearing. Not something we wanted to [...]
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Good news from the squid inspection
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- On Tuesday we started remedial work on the colossal squid and her tank. Things are going very well and to schedule. Yesterday we put up the barriers around the tank and lifted up the huge lid, using a forklift. We then drained most of the liquid out of the tank. That’s not as simple a task [...]
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Art and architecture
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- My trip to Christchurch for the opening of Rita Angus: Life & Vision went well. I’m pleased with the way the exhibition looks at Christchurch Art Gallery, especially as the exhibition designer and I worked on whole thing pretty much via phone and email. By the time I got there the show was hung, and [...]
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What’s a punga?
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- “Punga” is a quintessential Kiwi word, used to refer to tree ferns or, sometimes more specifically, the trunks of tree ferns. But, no tree ferns were recorded by James Beever in his book A Dictionary of Maori Plant Names as being called punga by Māori. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that “punga” [...]
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Next stop, Christchurch
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- Rita Angus: Life & Vision opens at Christchurch Art Gallery this weekend. I’ll be heading down for the official opening tomorrow evening. On Saturday I’m doing a floortalk in the exhibition at noon, the first in what looks like a great line-up of events alongside the show. It’ll be nice to see the works again and [...]
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