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Playing with clay: Takeshi Yasuda

By Andrea Stevens

Fri, 26 Jun 2015

Renowned international potter Takeshi Yasuda has been making ceramics for more than 50 years. Now based in the 'porcelain capital' of the world Jingdezhen, China, the artist maintains a global practice with regular demonstrations and exhibitions abroad.

Caring for a collection: everyday objects from Te Awe

by Awhina Rawiri-Erick and Jenna Dudley

Wed, 20 May 2015

Te Awe is a project work space on the ground floor of the Museum just around the corner from our He Taonga Māori gallery. Through the glass doors, you can watch as staff work to care for the collections through conservation, documentation, photography and digitisation.

Did the kiwi ever fly?

by Matt Rayner

Wed, 20 May 2015

Anthony from Room 5 at Halsey Drive Primary School wanted to know did the kiwi's ancestor fly. Matt Rayner, Curator Land Vertebrates, explains the evolutionary history of our national bird.

Why the starfish is star-shaped

by Wilma Blom

Tue, 12 May 2015

Room 5 at Halsey Drive Primary School wanted to know why starfish are star-shaped and what a mussel's foot does for the mussel. Wilma Blom, Curator Marine Invertebrates, suggests some answers.

The language of Chinese embroidery

by Andrea Stevens

Mon, 7 Apr 2015

A gold embroidered Manchu-style jacket was one of the remarkable ‘hidden objects’ we displayed during Chinese New Year celebrations this year. To learn more about the garments and the art of Chinese embroidery, we invited two experts from the Confucius Institute in Auckland to discuss the figurative and poetic symbols sewn in silk and gold.

VOU Dance Company ignite Fiji collections

by Bethany Edmunds

Sat, 14 Mar 2015

Dance and the spoken word are powerful forms of cultural expression and memory and have a rich heritage in the Pacific. To celebrate Fijian Language Week 2014, we invited Suva-based dance company ‘VOU’ to bring sound and dance into the Museum. They spent four days with us, and members of the local Fiji community, to study and interpret themes sparked by the Fiji Collections. The result was an incredible dance performance.

Delicate Chinese porcelain survives bombs and earthquakes

by Kirsten MacFarlane

Thu, 26 Feb 2015

Decades after a prized collection of Chinese porcelain was left a heap of shards after bombing raids in London, it was rattled again by two major earthquakes in Christchurch. Auckland Museum’s principal conservator Sue Cooper and contract conservator Liz Yuda have spent the past four years preserving the collection while allowing it’s shaky past to shine through.