Evenings with an Expert

Due to current COVID-19 restrictions, our Evening with an Expert sessions will be recorded and available for you to watch from the comfort of your home.

Every Tuesday is an opportunity to broaden your knowledge with Evenings with an Expert. This series of short, 20-minute talks will be led by a different Auckland War Memorial Museum staff member each week, with topics ranging from fashion to activism to conservation and everything in between.

There are two talks per evening, so come and grab a bite to eat at Tuitui Museum Bistro & Café and explore the galleries after dark.

ONLINE
FREE

As part of Whale Tales 2022, Auckland Museum is host to one of 80 whale tails dotted around Tāmaki Makaurau, bringing to life themes of protecting and restoring the mauri of our Ocean.

Our whale tail is an appreciation and celebration of plankton. Providing the oxygen of every second breath we take, plankton is vital for the planet’s health and provide an essential food source for our ocean’s wildlife.   

Because plankton is imperative to marine ecosystems- including as food for Bryde's whales and other baleen whales, we hope to protect the Tiny to the Mighty. 

Join the artists behind the tail as they discuss their story and what inspired the project. 

WATCH NOW

ONLINE
FREE

Online Cenotaph is a military database of Aotearoa New Zealand service personnel. Managed by Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum, the database includes more than 255,000 individual records spanning the South African Wars to today. It is utilised and enriched by veterans, whānau, genealogists and researchers alike.

2021 was a busy year for the Online Cenotaph team, updating and creating thousands of records, working on numerous transcription projects with our Visitor Host and Volunteers, and working with all our researchers and contributors. This talk will highlight the accomplishments of the past 12 months.

WATCH NOW

ONLINE
FREE

From bilums to backpacks, ketes to knapsacks and pouches to pockets, bags come in all shapes and sizes. While their name and form may differ across cultures and histories, the bag is one of the most universally used object in the world and all function to carry not just things but stories.

Join Grace Lai, Curator of Applied Arts and Design as she looks at the world through the humble reusable bag that has now become an essential tool for our daily lives.

WATCH NOW

ONLINE
FREE

Online Cenotaph is a biographical database that allows researchers, enthusiasts, and veterans and their families to explore, contribute to, and share the records and stories of those who served for Aotearoa New Zealand. Managed by Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum, the database includes 250,000 individual records spanning the South African Wars to today.

Join Madison, Collection Technician Research Support as she shares more about Online Cenotaph, some of the recent work they have been doing, and how Online Cenotaph can be used for research and sharing the stories of our loved ones.

_{Image: Madison with historian, Dr Gabrielle Fortune.}

WATCH NOW

ONLINE
FREE

Did you know Auckland Museum has over 3 million objects in its collection? Yet only around 2% of these objects are displayed inside the Museum at any one time.

But there is one place you can find the Museums' treasures 24/7 and it's called Collections Online. Join James Taylor, the Museum's Online Collections Information & Partnership Manager, as he talks about the work the Museum does making its digital collections open and accessible to users around the world via Collections Online.

He will also talk about the various online partnerships that have lead to the Museum's objects being viewed 55 million times in the last financial year on websites such as Flickr, Pinterest, Digital New Zealand, and Wikipedia.

WATCH NOW

ONLINE
FREE

“Shoot first and tell stories later. Now, much, much later, viewing my photographs retrospectively I am still able to recognise people in the crowds that I didn't discern while I was engaged in photographing the events, people and action on the day.”

Shaun Higgins, Curator of Pictorial collections at Auckland War Memorial Museum presents a conversation with photographer John Mercer, forty years on from the anti-Springbok tour protests on 12 September, 1981.

His photographs remain a lasting testament to those who took to the streets of Auckland’s Eden Park to protest the Springbok Tour, the third test, and apartheid.

This event is hosted in partnership with Google Arts & Culture, showcasing John Mercer’s photography that documents the clash between protesters and police that day. View the Google Arts & Culture story here.

Once uploaded, the session will be available on our At Home page.

6PM & 7PM
MEET IN WWI HALL OF MEMORIES, LEVEL 2
FREE, NO BOOKING REQUIRED

Come and learn about exciting new discoveries made during conservation work on the huge canvas maps in the Museum's WW1 Hall of Memories. Conservator Sue Cooper will share some of the fascinating insights revealed during treatment of these maps and the many mysteries which still remain. This is the first time the canvas panels have been off the wall in 90 years. Enjoy an opportunity to assess ultra-violet and infrared images of overpainted areas and see what you think is hidden behind!

Sue Cooper is Principal Conservator at Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland Museum. Over the last nine years she has overseen conservation work on large-scale projects such as the Pacific Collection Access Project, the Te Awe Taonga Māori Project and the Hotunui Preservation Project. Sue trained as an Objects Conservator in the UK at De Montfort University Lincoln.