Auckland War Memorial Museum has honoured the careers of four outstanding individuals in its Museum Medals ceremony.
The medals for 2019 were presented to:
Meryl Wright – Associate Emerita of Auckland War Memorial Museum
Doris de Pont - Companion of Auckland War Memorial Museum
Sheridan Waitai - Companion of Auckland War Memorial Museum
Wendy Nelson - Fellow of Auckland War Memorial Museum
(The recipient’s profiles are provided below)
Auckland Museum Director Dr David Gaimster says “It is a pleasure to recognise the major contributions the recipients have made to their areas of study and to be able to acknowledge innovation across such diverse disciplines. It’s privilege to celebrate their achievements alongside their whanau, friends and colleagues.”
Meryl Wright was made Associate Emerita of Auckland War Memorial Museum, which recognises Museum staff or volunteers’ noteworthy achievements.
Doris De Pont and Sheridan Waitai were both made Companions of War Auckland War Memorial Museum, recognising their achievements to the public service of Auckland Museum.
Wendy Nelson was made a Fellow of the Auckland War Memorial Museum acknowledging exemplary scholastic achievement relevant to the Museum’s activities.
The event also featured guest speaker Associate Professor Ngarino Ellis, Convenor of Art History at the University of Auckland and a leading specialist in Māori and Indigenous art history.
Meryl Wright
Associate Emerita of Auckland War Memorial Museum
Meryl Wright is known to be Auckland Museum’s longest standing volunteer, having volunteered her time weekly for nearly four decades. She began when her son Anthony Wright was appointed Curator of Botany in 1980. Desperate for assistance with a growing backlog of specimens awaiting mounting before incorporation in the Herbarium, he recruited Meryl and her good friend Joan Dow to help.
Meryl’s dedication to the Museum continued long after Anthony left to become the Director of the Canterbury Museum. She was noted for her commitment to starting early, before anyone else had arrived and working mounting pressed plant specimens for five hours, one day a week. On average, she would mount 25-30 specimens a day, which totals more than 50,000 specimens over the 39 years.
Meryl was popular amongst the Museum’s wider volunteers and staff and trained other volunteers how to mount specimens and was passionate about perfecting the mounting presentation for even the unruliest grass and sedge specimens. In her final days, Meryl reflected on how much her weekly work at the Museum had meant to her.
Auckland Museum and the botanical community are indebted to Meryl because of the many thousands of specimens now available for research due to her work. Today, imaging projects mean her thousands of beautifully mounted specimens are now able to be seen and used by researchers all around the world through Auckland Museum’s online research portals.
Doris de Pont
Companion of Auckland War Memorial Museum
Doris de Pont is renowned for her dedication to making what we wear an essential part of the cultural conversation. Born in 1954 in Auckland to Dutch immigrants, she has always been interested in the language of clothing and its power to create and give expression to identity.
Doris completed a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology and Political Studies at the University of Auckland and went on to teach at Richmond Road School, before leaving for the Netherlands where she would live for seven years. Upon her return in 1984, Doris began collaborating with local artists to create original garment designs that helped her reach international markets in Australia, the UK, Denmark and Japan.
Following her retirement from design in 2008, Doris completed an Honours Degree in Museums and Cultural Heritage and founded the New Zealand Fashion Museum. As the country’s first online Museum it documents our fashion story digitally. Working collaboratively it borrows garments, objects and photos from the community and cultural institutions for public exhibitions in host spaces, such as department stores, retail developments and museums.
Over the last decade Doris has curated 15 exhibitions which have been visited by 398.000 people. She has written and contributed to many books and publications. In 2019 she was invited to present a paper at the Costume Society of America's Annual Conference in Seattle that framed a view of contemporary New Zealand fashion as privileging our geographic location over our colonial past.
In 2013 Doris was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit.
Sheridan Waitai
Ngati Kuri, Te Rarawa; Ngati Hine, Ngati Rehia; Tainui
Companion of Auckland War Memorial Museum
Sheridan Waitai is of Ngāti Kurī descent and grew up in Te Hiku o te Ika. With significant experience in legislation and the policy environment in relation to indigenous issues, she has contributed to environmental, social, education and health initiatives.
She is the lead for her iwi for the WAI262 Fauna and Flora Claim, and Island work on Motu o Pao (Cape Maria Van Diemen) Manawatāwhi (Three Kings) and Rangitāhua (Kermadec Island) proposed Sanctuary and coordinates a range of relationships and partners nationally, and globally, to achieve shared prosperity, community resilience and mana motuhake for Ngāti Kurī.
In 2015, Sheridan worked with the Museum to conduct an expedition around Rangitāhua and Manawatāwhi and has been instrumental in building a strong relationship between the Museum and Ngāti Kurī, paving the way for a Memorandum of Understanding that sets out the rules of engagement, a work programme to achieve the goals of Ngati Kurī’s strategic flightpath Te Ara Whānui, hands-on science and important wider partnerships with the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA); Manaaki Whenua, Landcare Research; and the Universities of Auckland, Christchurch and Otago.
The strength of the Museum’s relationship with Ngāti Kurī is a testament to Sheridan’s leadership, and expertise in the natural enviroment and her work to deliver projects and activities on the ground. The unique values, knowledge, approach and determination she brings to the partnership has generated commitment and contributions from wider Ngāti Kurī, and interest from a growing range of scientists and researchers, volunteers and strategic partners.
Sheridan’s work has been instrumental in informing how iwi, indigenous communities, scientists and organisations can work together to interweave mātauranga Māori perspectives and knowledge with Western Scientific perspectives.
Dr Wendy Nelson
Fellow of Auckland War Memorial Museum
Dr Wendy Nelson is a botanist with her research focused on marine macroalgae, particularly the diversity, biology, ecology, and distribution of the New Zealand flora. In addition to her focus on systematics, her work has included research on introduced and invasive seaweeds, commercial harvesting, seaweed aquaculture, and algal ecology.
She has made extensive collections throughout the New Zealand region from Rangitāhua/ Kermadec Islands to the subantarctic islands, publishing regional floras and building reference collections in herbaria. Amongst other discoveries this research has led to the recognition of New Zealand as a centre of diversity on a global scale for several groups of macroalgae including the Bangiales and the coralline algae.
Wendy worked for the Ministry of Fisheries prior to 15 years in the herbarium of Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. She currently holds a joint position as a Programme Leader at NIWA and as a Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Auckland.
Dr Nelson has been President of the Australasian Society for Phycology and Aquatic Botany, the Asian Pacific Phycological Association, and the International Phycological Society, and served on the Board of the Japanese Phycological Society and the NZ Marine Sciences Society.
She has received the Allan Mere Award from the New Zealand Botanical Society, Zonta Woman Scientist Award, Provasoli Award from the Phycological Society of America, George Papenfuss Systematics Award, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the New Zealand Marine Sciences Society, and the Hutton Medal from the Royal Society Te Apārangi.
She is a Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi and is a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit.
Media Contact:
Nicole O’Brien – Communications Manager
Auckland War Memorial Museum
Email: nobrien@aucklandmuseum.com
Phone: 021 501 232