Ours: Treasures from Te Papa

Taonga that have shaped our identity. Noelle McCarthy celebrates Te Papa's 20th birthday by talking to 20 New Zealanders about 20 treasures that help tell our nation's story.On Valentines Day 1998, The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa opened on the Wellington waterfront.Prime Minister Jim Bolger, who pushed it through despite Treasury and cabinet opposition, later said "We needed a museum that captured who we were as a people, as a nation, as a country". Twenty years on, Noelle McCarthy rummages through the collection to find 20 objects that speak to that sense of nationhood Bolger was so keen to put on display.Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

The first object comes from the moment of 'first contact'. Historian Dame Anne Salmond talks about the silver ferns collected by the Endeavour and how New Zealand was born in science.These are the originals. The ferns that spawned a million flags, t-shirts, logos, earrings and rugby jerseys. The ferns that first connected Aotearoa with the wider world. In this case that 'wider world' was the crew of Captain Cook's ship Endeavour; in particular botanists Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander.For it was those two men - accompanied by their servants - who plucked these two ferns from obscurity in 1769 and added them to the collection of wild and wonderful natural tit-bits they were gathering from around the country. They had sailed off the map and into the unknown and these two silver ferns were part of their haul of mysterious plants, new and exciting to the eyes of all except the tangata whenua."It was this breath-taking moment," says historian Dame Anne Salmond, "when they had all this new, amazing wealth of new forms of life that needed to be collected and classified and if possible preserved and then taken back to England so they could be studied."“I’d characterize it like kids in a lolly store type thing," adds Te Papa botany curator Leon Perrie. "As botanists, what you’re doing is you dream of finding new species. And here they come into a country where no European has landed before and they are surrounded by all these plants that are new.”The ferns are now in Te Papa's care and are the first item chosen for Ours, the podcast that explores 20 objects that help explain who we are as New Zealanders. The silver fern takes us back to 'first contact' days, but is also as current as the 2015 flag referendum and the next All Blacks test.The silver fern has become New Zealand's de facto national symbol, and while it's now most associated with sport and environmental causes, Salmond says it should also remind us of our scientific roots. The Endeavour, remember, was sponsored by the Royal Society of London as well as the Crown."So I think our country is, as far as I know, the only nation whose shared history began with a scientific expedition.”When Cook and Co found the coastline around what is now Gisborne, they thought they had found the terra australis incognita. The Great Southern Land. It was like landing on the moon.The plants they found were things of wonder, and so are an apt way to start the series. Over the next five months we'll be telling the stories behind 19 other taonga from Te Papa, in celebration of our national museum's 20th birthday.Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has a favourite item at Te Papa and in episode two, we discover that while it speaks to her of endurance, it's probably not what you might expected. Not many politicians would choose as a hero a man as famous for finding trouble as he was for getting out of it. Yet when Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern gets up close and personal with one of the hand-made sleds from Sir Ernest Shackleton's 1907 Antarctic expedition she can hardly contain the excited child inside. "Incredible... Extraordinary," she gushes. It turns out Ardern has a little known obsession with the Irish-born explorer.Watch a video from the episode hereArdern confesses to having considered getting a tattoo of Shackleton. But where would she have put it?"That became the problem," she laughs.Shackleton may not be an easy hero and was a forgotten one for much of the 20th century. But he wasn't any old chancer; indeed, he's now regarded as a role model in team-building. He might have failed in his attempt to be the first to cross Antarctica in 1914, but the heroic leadership of his stranded crew over ice and sea, without a single loss of life, has become a story for the ages. And perhaps not bad inspiration for a leader of the modern Labour Party.For episode two of Ours, as we discover 20 objects in Te Papa's collection that help tell the story of our country, Ardern went behind the scenes at Te Papa to see one of the bamboo, ash and hickory sleds Shackleton's crew hauled across the frozen continent on the earlier 1907 Nimrod expedition. It may be a story that takes place offshore, but the Nimrod set sail from Lyttleton and in 1914, Shackleton's ship the Endurance was captained by Cantabrian Frank Worsley.New Zealand's connection and commitment to Antarctica runs deep, including Sir Edmund Hillary's 1957-8 journey to the South Pole (the first by motor vehicle) and the loss of 257 lives in the Mt Erebus air crash in 1979.Ardern's passion for Shackleton stems from her father and the book, Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing. She lists it as her favourite read."It was Alfred Lansing’s version of the story that was published in the 1950s where he’d managed to get those eyewitness accounts - it was just such an extraordinary tale and I couldn’t imagine the human spirit let alone body that could have endured that and yet there it was," she says…Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Jonah Lomu steamrolled Mike Catt and, as former TV host Julian Wilcox recalls, changed the game of rugby forever. But this treasure about much more than sport.Rugby is a game of colonies, transported from the playing fields of England's private schools around the British Empire. But in 1995 there was a moment of brilliance that made rugby a world sport and changed the game forever; and it was sparked by a Tongan 20 year-old.It was the semi-final of the 1995 Rugby World Cup, the All Blacks vs England. The All Blacks had been dominating the tournament but this game went down in history due to what commentator Keith Quinn called "the most brilliant quartet of tries you'd ever wish to see". They were scored by Jonah Lomu. They got New Zealand into the final. But they did much more."This was more than just a game," says former TV host and die-hard Hurricanes fan Julian Wilcox. "Perhaps the most memorable moment was when Lomu simply ran over the top of England fullback Mike Catt, in his famous bulldozer run. But his performance that day was as memorable for its impact off the field as it was for securing the comfortable 45-29 victory."We now know that as a result of what Jonah did, the world became interested in rugby. Jonah becomes this global brand. Jonah becomes the ambassador of Sport New Zealand. And rugby itself across the world. Jonah’s got a Jonah burger at McDonald's. Jonah is professional sport in New Zealand. Jonah is the reason why the world becomes interested – not just in rugby – the world becomes interested in the All Blacks," says Wilcox.So this week's object, chosen in part to recognise the importance of Pacific culture in our national story, is not a tapa cloth or one of the other 15,000 typically traditional items in Te Papa's collection.It's the 1997 PlayStation video game 'Jonah Lomu Rugby'."When these games first came out it was interesting that the rugby bosses chose a Pacific Islander and a Tongan to represent the game," says Sean Mallon, Senior Curator Pacific Culture at Te Papa."This was part of the marketing of Jonah Lomu within the marketing of the international game. So you have this Tongan man from New Zealand becoming the face of international professional rugby. And that’s part of a bigger story about how Pacific people became the face and the most marketable commodity in the professionalization of rugby.""For a long time and even today New Zealanders have had an ambivalent relationship with Pacific peoples, wanting them in some instances and not wanting them in others..…Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Before humans, New Zealand was a land of birds. Our recent efforts to save them have sparked some heroic stories... but also some, er, quirky ones. Such as the kakapo ejaculation helmet.It's the story of a bird alone. A good keen bird, you might say, just not keen enough on the right things.Sirocco the kākāpō became a star in 2009 when he tried to mate with zoologist Mark Carwardine, who was filming a BBC documentary with British actor Stephen Fry.Sadly, this has been typical of Sirocco's tastes and he hasn't been terribly successful mating with his own kind. As the folk at the Kākāpō Recovery Programme have written:"The call of the wild wasn’t so loud for Sirocco. It soon became apparent that, as a result of the intensive hand-raising and lack of kākāpō company, he had been imprinted on humans."So in a great Kiwi tale of thinking outside the box, rangers tried wearing a "kākāpō ejaculation helmet". If it was a human head that turned him on, well... Te Papa's Vertebrates Curator Colin Miskelly takes up the story:"The helmet was part of trying to make use of these over-sexed males and seeing if they could get them to leave their semen on the helmet".Well, it was worth a crack, Sirocco.For Seven Sharp host and bird fancier Jeremy Wells, a dimpled latex helmet was certainly worth the effort, because the kākāpō is such " a beautiful bird... beautiful plumage. You've got to say, next level plumage."Humans, he says, were a huge blow to their species.Once, they were a common sight in New Zealand - apparently in the old days you used to shake trees and out they fell - but they became a staple of the Māori diet and then suffered further when Europeans arrived with stoats and weasels.As New Zealand children are routinely taught, kākāpō were nearly extinct, but they are making a comeback, if a rather fragile one.The effort made to save the bird that Fry described as looking like a Victorian gentleman with sideburns has been massive, and the population at the time of writing is 149.Given New Zealand is a land of birds - a country that before humans hardly knew what a mammal looked like - we could hardly tell the story of New Zealand without a nod to our efforts to save our birdlife from our own sins.And the ejaculation helmet is a suitably 'just crazy enough that it might work' sort of idea that seems right at home here. The fact it failed is neither here nor there, it's the willingness to give it a go that speaks volumes…Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

The '81 Springbok Tour woke and divided New Zealand, but this week's object and its champion are a surprising combination that shows just how far we've come.New Zealand has a proud tradition of activism dating back to Hone Heke and Kate Sheppard. But few who have chosen protest as their turangawaewae can claim to have changed New Zealand.John Minto is one who did just that, which is why his helmet is the focus of this episode. Now, his courage is being recognised by, of all people, New Zealand's police chief.The ’81 Tour was a watershed moment in modern New Zealand history for many reasons – the way it forced New Zealanders to confront racism in South Africa and here at home; the divides it exposed between urban and rural New Zealand, generations and even within families; the damage it did to the reputation of the New Zealand police; how it was cynically but effectively used to win an election; and how it challenged what New Zealanders would forgive for the sake of the national religion, rugby.At the heart of that upheaval, challenging New Zealanders to take a long, hard look at themselves, was Minto. As national organiser of Halt All Racist Tours (HART), Minto led the protest movement as it went, in his words, "to the edge of the law".Yet the police saw it differently, with 1500 arrests from among the estimated 150,000 people who took part in more than 200 demonstrations.One of the young officers policing the law's edge was Mike Bush, now the country's police commissioner. He was on duty at the infamous Hamilton game, when the protestors made it onto the field and stopped the match."There was a lot of anger and aggression between both parties and as I reflect on that and think about how we manage these days, we learnt a lot from 1981 in how we manage any public order event or protest. We have to remember that in these situations we're the professionals."What might surprise some - even upset a few - is Bush's praise for the courage of those protestors."You just have to admire those central leaders in the protest movement for standing up for what they believe in."Because they really did change the course of history... They didn’t just put their values on the line, they put their bodies on the line for it as well. And it had a massive impact."The helmet is at the light end of things, made of fibreglass and covered with dings. It was, believe it or not, a scooter helmet. Not much protection from the police batons and a curious choice given other at the protests opted for motorbike helmets.Minto was given the helmet by his girlfriend, after he was hit by a bottle the night of the cancelled Waikato-Springbok game on July 25…Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

In the 1970s New Zealand started to find its own voice through mass media, and that included imported children's television. Ready to knock? Turn the lock.he names are instantly recognisable to a generation or more, because they were the toys that belonged to us all... Humpty, Jemima, Big Ted, Little Ted and of course New Zealand's own Manu.Sometime it's not the significant or serious things that tell us most about ourselves. So in this week's Ours we look at the dolls that really were ours.NZ On Screen: Play School - Presenter CompilationAs Te Papa's Modern New Zealand curator Kirstie Ross says "they're part of shared national popular culture and memory". They were on the one and only TV channel, and we entered the world of games, crafts, stories and these toys through the iconic Play School door ("Ready to knock? Turn the lock. Play School!"). If nothing else, we learnt dozens of things to do with old toilet rolls and cotton wool.Play School began in New Zealand in 1972, a knock-off from the BBC, but it came at a time when New Zealand was changing, and the way our hosts talked, acted and played with those dolls reflected those changes.Actor and one-time Play School host Theresa Healey recalls that when she worked on the programme in the 1980s "we were getting away from the British, about being a New Zealand voice. Because in the show, it always used to make me laugh, we'd go through the window - it was always these - you'd go through to the Thames. If we were talking about rivers we'd go to the Thames... And it as like - we've got so many amazing things here, why aren't we using New Zealand stuff?"Humpty, Jemima, and the Teds all derived from the British series that started in 1964. Humpty, Healey especially recalls as "just gorgeous... round and cuddly".But the dolls didn't always cooperate. "They never quite did what you wanted them to do. You'd be putting them in the boat, because you were going boating and one would fall over."But we also got one of the earliest indigenous characters on New Zealand television - the doll Manu."For Manu," says Ross, "we do have a piupiu and a feather cloak as well, because she's a Maori doll she would wear those for special events. And Manu was what made New Zealand's Play School quite special."Working with those dolls, Healey knew her place."They were the stars of the show... they were telling the stories and that's what the kids identified with."…Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

What has the biggest eyes in the world, blue blood and three hearts? Sam Cousins knows and it's a bit of natural science that connects us to the oceans surrounding us.She came all the way from the Ross Sea, to lie in central Wellington. And she is a she. A female colossal squid that surprised the world.When a 300kg specimen was found in 2003, speculation that some colossal squid could weigh as much as 500kg was met with some skepticism. Then in 2007 a longline trawler chasing toothfish in the Ross Sea came across a 470kg specimen and the proof was hauled from the ocean as the cameras rolled. Colossal squid could really be that colossal.The giant creature has since been housed in Te Papa and is one of the museum's star attractions. It's the only one on display in the world and, perhaps, a sign of New Zealand's significance as the "last, loneliest, loveliest" place before you hit the frozen land of Antarctica. The squid and its popularity speaks to New Zealand's scientific curiosity and connection to the seas that surround us as an island nation. Certainly, nearly-10 year-old Sam Cousins is a fan. And full of facts."They have three hearts. Their eyeballs are the size of soccer balls," he says.He's been visiting the squid for years, and he's not the only one. Te Papa's Collection Manager of Sciences, Andrew Stewart, says it's been an aquatic attraction for experts. You see, for all Sam's facts, we know very little about them."It was a unique opportunity for scientists from around the world to come and look at the whole animal, not just extrapolate from the bits and pieces we've had in the past; what sex it is, how mature is it; how big do they actually get; what are the dimensions of the different parts of the body..."It's a rare scientific bonus to come from fishing industry by-catch."Catching a whole specimen in Antarctica, bringing it back, those excellent relationships we have with the observers and the seafood industry making scientific specimens available, we're learning more and more. Every specimen that comes in gives us more and more information that we didn't know before and we keep finding new things right under our noses."That will mean more facts for Sam - and all who still have a bit of the nearly-10 year-old in them."They can see in the dark because they have the biggest eyes in the world," Sam says. "And it's funny how their blood is blue."*The colossal squid will go into storage shortly after Easter until Te Papa opens its new nature zone early next year.Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

I am scared is about feeling the fear and doing it anyway. It's a universal theme, but its depiction by this great New Zealand artist could only have been painted here.He is New Zealand's great 'I am'. No, not God or Yahweh, but Colin McCahon, an artist with a fondness for the words 'I am' and grand religious themes. They feature in many of his works in many different ways, and he undoubtedly is one of New Zealand's artistic greats. Someone whose work could only have been created in Aotearoa.Painted in 1976 and bought in 2008, I am scared is simple, urgent and dark. It shows us McCahon's distinctive use of words from a time when he had said that he only ever needed black and white to do his work. Light and dark. The words 'I am scared' are lower case and hesitant; the rejoinder that speaks of a determination to stand for something in spite of that fear is written in upper case and at least attempts to look stronger."I'm scared," says art critic Anthony Byrt, "about the things that he is expressing on the surface of those works, which is kind of around environmental questions but also existential ones."Te Papa's Senior Curator of Art, Sarah Farrar, replies: "There were five works that he made as part of the Scared series – through the series of five it kind of shifts from being this kind of very personal expression to being more of a comment on the human condition."Byrt says for him McCahon had started painting landscapes so confidently, but by the Scared series he had found more violence and uncertainty in the New Zealand landscape and he was doing his best to follow that darkness where it led."I think we owe him a lot for that, for not turning away, for not letting the fear get the better of him in that moment."Sam Neill has described the words on this artwork as a definition of heroism. The feeling of the fear, but the doing it anyway. In that sense, the theme is universal.But McCahon's themes are so often New Zealand's themes: Landscape and race relations.Says Byrt: "The 'I' comes to stand for all of us who are a product of this traumatic collision between two cultures and that’s why I think McCahon’s work is a problem because New Zealand is forever a problem. It’s a very unresolvable thing."And so New Zealand culture is a thing that we struggle to describe that happens on the surface of that scar, that moment of collision between two cultures that he articulates almost better than anybody else."…Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

It looks like a bit of wood, but it tells a much bigger story of immigration and inspiration. A story as big as a dinosaur.This is where Jurassic Park began. It's when we actually stared walking with dinosaurs. In fact it's the moment humans first realised dinosaurs existed, and, like the rest of us, it immigrated to New Zealand and has found its home here.Amongst the collections at Te Papa - and a dead-cert for our list - is a simple fossilised tooth that is truly a world first and the envy of dinosaur fanatics worldwide. It's a tooth that was discovered near Brighton, in England, around 1820 by Mary Ann Mantell and her husband, Gideon. The couple were passionate fossil collectors and one day Mary Ann - or was it Gideon? Both stories have been told - found some large teeth on the side of the road. Experts struggled to identify them. Rhinoceros? Crocodile? Some kind of large lizard?How were they to know it belonged to an Iguanodon, a creature that weighed around three tonnes and could be 13 metres long? As 16 year-old dinosaur enthusiast and our guide for this episode, Eric London says, for those trying to make sense of the fossil record two hundred years ago, "it's kind of like a real life dragon"."Of course you can imagine in the 1800s," says Dr Hamish Campbell, Te Papa’s geologist in residence from GNS Science, "how did educated people get their head around the concept of extinction? It really didn’t exist until the discovery of dinosaurs and then bingo, people started realizing wow, there must have been organisms around on this planet that ware no longer here so it kick-started the whole investigation of dinosaurs as well as raising the concept of extinction.”And it began with this tooth, the very first fossil to be recognized as dinosaur."This is like the Holy Grail," says Campbell."it kind of led us to realize what these creatures were, where they’d come fro and well, it basically started off our knowledge about dinosaurs in general so stuff like Jurassic Park," London adds. "All the cool things that stem from dinosaurs kind of started with that tooth…. You know, it’s pretty cool.”Even though it looks like a bit of wood. So how did it end up in New Zealand?…Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

The story of a nation is more than great works of art, turbulent moments of history and dramatic discoveries. Sometimes you can see the truth of a country in a piece of fish with a scoop of chips.A fish shop worker's uniform seems an unlikely item to include in a museum collection, but that's only if you take it on face value.Lean in to take a closer look. There might just be the lingering smell of fish and chips caught in its fabric.It's a taonga that tells many stories – the story of a young Tongan woman in Otara working long hours to help her family, and more, the story of this nation's social and industrial identity.The uniform consists of a navy cap with Toby's Seafood embroidered on the front, a name badge, polo shirt and a royal blue hoodie to keep warm in winter.The name badge says 'Peta'. It belongs to Elisapeta Fononga, 18, who donated it after taking part in Project 83 - Small Things Matter - a co-collecting project that Te Papa took with a Year 13 Tongan language class from Sir Edmund Hillary Collegiate in Otara.When asked by the museum to choose an everyday item that meant a lot to her, she chose her Toby’s Seafood uniform because it represents "the struggle" for her and her family."I wanted to put my story out there, just for other people to see and read and just to see what it was like - my experience, you know, working and also studying at the same time," she says.Nina Tonga, curator of Pacific Art at Te Papa, says the uniform is part of the social history of Tongan youth as told by Elisapeta."The reason she gave it to us was because she actually wanted to tell the story of sacrifice and of family. So she saw her parents struggling financially and she really wanted to help them by getting a part-time job."Toby’s Seafood is New Zealand owned and operated and has five fish shops in Auckland. They sell all sorts of kaimoana including shellfish, fresh fish and that Kiwi classic - fish and chips.Elisapeta started work at the Otahuhu branch of Toby's in late 2013 when she was in Year nine. She had to pay for her uniform, though the tee-shirt was free. The jacket cost $17.50 and the cap $20. She mostly worked at the cash register but also helped the cooks and did cleaning.Elisapeta, who has nine brothers and sisters, worked part-time but long hours, 7am to 7pm, getting paid what was then the minimum wage of $15.75. Her mum helped her get the job as she already worked at Toby's fish markets.Tonga says the uniform has a story that goes beyond Elisapeta’s life…Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

This nocturnal creature doesn't have the prettiest mugshot and can appear a little intimidating with its tusks, barbs, and armour.It's the "ultimate monster" which has been on the scene even before the dinosaurs. Sir Richard Taylor was so enamoured by the critter that he named his company after it.Meet one of New Zealand's most iconic insects - the wētā - just don't get too close - this little monster bites.Watch the video from the episode here.Taylor, the head of Weta Workshop, is on a quest to encourage New Zealanders not to be so afraid of his company's icon."For 25 plus years, when people have asked me about wētā, I've said 'Oh, they're completely innocuous, they won't hurt you' because I love people not to think to squish them, so you want to try and make them fairly safe sounding, right?..."But...what, two years ago, with Ruud [Kleinpaste], live on film, one bit me on the end of the finger. And it really hurt."Te Papa's wētā collection contains hundreds of specimens - including a West Coast bush wētā that was identified and named by the naturalist Sir Walter L. Buller in 1896.Entomologist Phil Sirvid is the custodian of these insects at Te Papa, which he describes as a privilege."I don't think there's any debate, if we asked New Zealanders to name the most iconic New Zealand insect, this would be up there," he says.While the insect is found in other parts of the world, Sirvid reckons the New Zealand wētā is particularly special."Nowhere else have they diversified to the extent they have in New Zealand," he says."A lot of them have taken the roles that we might assign to some of the mammals that we don't have here. Wētā have been described as invertebrate mice, literally scurrying around on the forest floor - this is before we got mice, of course. Some of them are seed dispersers and all sorts of other things."According to the Department of Conservation, there are more than 70 species of wētā in New Zealand. They can be broken down into five groups: The tree wētā , ground wētā , cave wētā , giant wētā and tusked wētā.About 17 species of wētā are endangered.Taylor, who was knighted for his services to film in 2010, is clearly a big fan of this nocturnal invertebrate."We named the company wētā because this is the ultimate little creature in New Zealand, maybe the ultimate monster although a very beautiful one. And wētāpunga of course means god of ugly things so we thought what a wonderful thing to name our company after," he says…Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

William Strutt's painted depiction of the New Zealand Wars may be almost 160 years old but, amid recent claims of racism and propaganda, it’s making headlines in 2018.Some consider it a colonialist masterpiece, while others say it is simply colonialist propaganda.The artist depicts a scene from a fraught time in this nation's history – the New Zealand Wars.And just like any artwork or moment in history, the painting’s meaning is subject to interpretation and destined to alter with time.In this week’s episode of Ours, we turn our gaze to the Strutt painting.Where other choices have tended to reflect discovery and success, this adds, like the John Minto helmet, a dimension of the tension and even violence that is part of who we are as New Zealanders.Te Papa has described the scene as a “tense moment of Māori resistance to European settlement in Taranaki”.In 2015, the museum bought the work for $1.5 million.At the time of purchase, Te Papa's then chief executive Rick Ellis said: "There are very few paintings that reflect the historical events that were unfolding during this period - it captures a powerful moment in our history."The painting is now back in the spotlight after the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in New Plymouth mooted the idea of including the work in an upcoming exhibition.In response, Taranaki kaumātua Peter Moeahu told media that the gallery would be perpetuating “colonialist's propaganda” by exhibiting the work.The painting denigrated Māori as thieves as it inferred they were stealing from settlers, he said."I understand from an art point of view that controversy is great, but from my point of view it stunk,” he told the Taranaki Daily News.Another Taranaki kaumātua, Grant Knuckey, agreed and said the painting should be burnt.The painting is currently displayed in Te Papa’s New Zealand Wars gallery near the entrance.Speaking before the controversy erupted, Te Papa's curator of historical New Zealand art, Rebecca Rice, acknowledged the piece made a statement.“I was quite keen to use it as the initial encounter into this very complicated history we’re trying to tell, to use a painting at the outset to allow viewers to engage on their own terms seemed an important thing to do.”Strutt made the work in Melbourne after living in Taranaki in the mid-1850s. He relied on previous sketches he had made and newspaper reports to create the work.Rice describes it as a dramatic painting…Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

This little object is so small it could fit in your pocket, yet it's a powerful symbol of one woman's courage and activism in very difficult conditions.Warning: The following includes graphic details of Frances Parker's treatment in prisonIn the midst of the #MeToo and Time's Up movement, this object is perhaps more relevant than it has been for decades.It takes us back to a time when women were seen as mad or hysterical for demanding to be treated as more than objects, sidekicks or second class citizens. A time that speaks to us in echoes even today.So, in this week's episode we turn our attention to the Suffragette medal, which was awarded to Frances Parker, a New Zealander who fought for women's suffrage in Britain.Te Papa bought the medal, known as the Women's Social and Political Union Medal for Valour, for about $40,000 in 2016 from auction house Dix Noonan Web in London.Newspaper columnist and occasional demonstrator, Leah McFall, says she's in awe of Parker's medal and what it represents."It's militaristic really, an emblem of incredible suffering and courage and valour."Parker, who was from Otago, grew up at a time of great political and social change. New Zealand, of course, was the first nation to give women the vote in 1893, with Kate Sheppard heading the movement. Three years later, at the age of 22, Parker left for Britain to study at Cambridge.In Britain, Emmeline Pankhurst was leading the charge and formed the women's political and social union in 1903. By 1908, protests began to turn more militant and Parker was involved.Te Papa's senior curator of history, Claire Regnault, says the group's acts were designed to attract publicity.She gives the example of a window smashing campaign in London that resulted in Parker's arrest."[It was] co-ordinated for a Friday at 5.45 [pm] exactly, all these women who seemed to be peacefully going around town shopping suddenly - and the newspaper descriptions are wonderful - from their handbags and their muffs came stones and batons and sticks and they began violently smashing windows," Regnault says.Parker eventually becoming a prominent leader of the Women's Political and Social Union in Scotland…Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

This patu parāoa (whalebone hand weapon) used during the New Zealand Wars offers a window or "little cobweb” into New Zealand’s past.This patu parāoa (whalebone hand weapon) used during the New Zealand Wars offers a window or "little cobweb” into New Zealand’s past.The patu parāoa, now safely stored at Te Papa, may look ornamental, but do not be deceived.It has many stories to tell, including an unlikely connection with a British general.In Te Ao Māori, taonga resonate according to the events and people with whom they are associated.It’s believed this patu, a whalebone hand weapon, was used in the battle of Te Ranga in Tauranga Moana, on 21 June 1864.“After the Māori triumph at Gate Pā was the battle of Te Ranga, which we lost. The colonial forces overwhelmed us and overtook us,” Te Papa’s acting head of Mātauranga Māori, Puawai Cairns, says.“It’s a lot more complicated but I see Te Ranga as a huge tragedy and great sadness for the tribes of Tauranga.”For Cairns, who has tribal affiliations to the iwi of Tauranga Moana, Ngāi te Rangi, Ngāti Ranginui and Ngāti Pūkenga, this patu has personal significance.“As a descendant of Tauranga, as someone who will always have the soul tie back to my ancestors, this is like a little window or a little cobweb that helps me connect to home and to the stories I was brought up with,” she says.The patu has been well-handled and had a lot of wear, Cairns says, with a good patina on it.While we don’t know exactly who used the patu in battle, a paper label fixed to its surface in another century tells of a fleeting association with an English soldier, a collision of Māori and Pākehā worlds that echoes across time and space.His name was General Horatio Gordon Robley, and he fought at Gate Pā and Te Ranga.During his time in New Zealand, Robley sent sketches to the Illustrated London News, Victorian Britain’s most widely read weekly newspaper, communicating a vision of the New Zealand Wars to the seat of colonial power.That included a sketch of what is believed to be this very patu.Cairns says she has been trying to figure out this special object’s history, ever since she started working as a curator.“If it is one of the weapons in the sketch referred to on the label, this patu parāoa becomes a witness to a very profound event in my whakapapa,” Cairns says.The patu comes with a note saying it was illustrated by General Robley in the London Illustrated News, 24 September 1864.Tim Walker is an expert on Robley who’s been following his trail for four decades…Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

What happens when Greek mythology meets modern pop culture feminism, with a bit of Kiwi battler thrown in?She's a character who hints at being from the Pantheon of ancient Greek mythology, but was in fact born entirely from modern imagination and brought to life not in the temples of the gods, but in west Auckland.Xena, the 'warrior princess', continues to inspire a cult following of ‘Xenites’ to this very day. Everyone needs a hero, or heroine, and this feminist icon, played by Kiwi actress Lucy Lawless, certainly fits the bill.So, in this week's episode we turn our attention to something a bit different – Xena’s costume, including her fabulous boots.Watch a video from the episode hereAccording to the show, Xena was a "mighty princess forged in the heat of battle”. After making friends with Hercules, Xena sought redemption from her dark and violent past and began fighting warlords and gods for the greater good.Xena's character was the full package – a strong and powerful woman, exceptional in combat, and with a signature battle cry that no doubt instilled fear in her enemies.Her partnership with sidekick and best friend Gabrielle also drew fans. Indeed, some have suggested the duo were more than just good friends.Xena’s character first appeared in an episode of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, but she went on to star in her own spinoff series.One of the creators of Xena’s costume, Ngila Dickson, says Xena’s character underwent a makeover after getting her own show.“There already was an established costume for Xena. In that time she was quite light, blonde and we were wanting to go for this darker, tougher, stronger image.”The show, which was filmed in New Zealand, ran from 1995 to 2001. When it ended, producers Pacific Renaissance Pictures gifted Xena’s costume to Te Papa.Xena’s outfit includes a brown leather dress, armour, a breast plate, gauntlets, arm bands and boots. It was initially designed by Barbara Darragh, then reworked by Dickson.The costume would not be complete of course without her weapons -including her whip, chakram and trusty sword. Robert Gillies designed the weapons and other props.Te Papa’s Senior Curator New Zealand History and Culture, Claire Regnault, says the outfit is still very popular with visitors.“We’ve had designers from all over the world come and see it, wanting to see it up close in person to study it. It’s one of those objects when you say to people ‘We’ve got Xena’s outfit’, you immediately get a reaction.”…Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

This spiky item helped a relatively unknown New Zealand athlete seize gold, and instant fame, at the 1960 Rome Olympics.This shoe doesn't come with the bells and whistles of modern running shoes - there's no foam cushioning, titanium cooling spheres or fancy flex grooves.But take a closer look and you'll notice the inspired and innovative touches that make this shoe so special.It tells the story of one athlete's spectacular sporting success, and loyalty to the shoes his coach made him. But it's also part of a larger story about New Zealand's sporting and national identity and our ability to improvise and modify in the face of competition. And arguably the greatest day in our sporting history.In this week's episode, we turn our attention to the shoes that Peter Snell was wearing when he won the 800 metres at the Rome Olympic Games in 1960 at the age of 21.Snell gifted 14 pieces from his collection to Te Papa in 2017, including two Olympic gold medals and one of his famous shoes.But, where's the other shoe?It turns out Snell donated the left shoe to Tauranga Girls' College in the mid-60s."The left shoe is on top of a block of rimu, it's a beautiful trophy, and it lives in the principal's office at Tauranga Girls College," says former principal of the college, Pauline Cowens.Snell wanted to encourage competition between Tauranga Girls and Rotorua Girls High School in athletics."What he didn't probably appreciate was how it would make the whole history stay alive."Because every single year when the two schools do their two sports exchanges and we compete for the trophy we revisit Peter Snell, we revisit the Olympic movement and we revisit the importance of sport," says Cowens.Peter Snell sprints to win the 800m final on 2 September, 1960, during the Olympic Games in Rome.The shoe was made especially for Snell by brothers Arthur and Wally Lydiard. In fact, Arthur Lydiard's signature can be seen on the side in gold letters.Lydiard is considered a ground-breaking athletics coach due to his revolutionary endurance training methods for his students. His earlier training as a shoemaker is less known."I think it was the pattern of training and the distances, the sheer distances that he made Peter run - and Arthur himself ran in Auckland - the training was really intensive," Te Papa's head of New Zealand and Pacific Cultures Bronwyn Labrum says.Lydiard's students included not only Snell, but Murray Halberg and Barry Magee…Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

These knitted creations are a Topp tribute to the beloved alter-egos of New Zealand's most famous folk-singing/yodelling/comedy duo.These miniature works of knitted art hail from Invercargill and might just be the ultimate Kiwiana tribute to two of New Zealand's most popular characters - Camp Mother and Camp Leader - the inspired creations of Lynda and Jools Topp; the Topp Twins.The activist sisters (and their woollen doppelgangers) have always displayed a 'girls can do anything' attitude that New Zealanders have embraced wholeheartedly.To top it off, the twins have just been made Dames Companion to the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to entertainment in the Queen's Birthday Honours.The careful, detailed work that went into creating the dolls reveals the dedication of their maker, who remains a mystery. But it also suggests something larger about the impact of the Topp Twins on this country's pop culture and even our politics.So this week we're admiring the knitted versions of Camp Mother and Camp Leader, which dames Lynda and Jools Topp gifted to Te Papa in 2000.Camp Mother's doll is magnificent in her trademark pink velour jumpsuit and matching turban. She sports a cardigan over the top and clutches a yellow handbag.Camp Leader pairs a dress with a lime green cardy, plus a headband, glasses and comes complete with her guitar.The characters were part of the Topp Twins' popular television series, The Topp Twins. The show ran from 1996 to 2000 and starred Camp Mother and Camp Leader, who ran the Happy Valley camping ground, and a host of other characters.The dolls were presented to the twins in Invercargill in 1999 while they were on tour."If anyone’s going to knit anything in New Zealand it has to come from Invercargill because knitting is still an art form down there, partly because of the weather," says Dame Lynda Topp, AKA Camp Mother."If you go out in Invercargill you’ve got to have a good cardy on or a nice jumper and you can’t beat a hand-knitted one. There’s always a lot of warmth in a hand-knitted one and also usually a lot of love, you know?”Topp says the sisters were so impressed with the knitted "icons" that they decided to include them in their show."We did a programme where Camp Mother and Camp Leader ended up at Te Papa with the dolls, so at the end of the show we gifted the dolls to Te Papa - and a beautiful thing happened because Te Papa actually just took them, they didn’t have to take them but they did, and every now and then they haul them out.”Te Papa's history curator Stephanie Gibson says the dolls tell many a yarn about New Zealand…Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

This is one of the most well-loved songs of the Pacific and its beautiful, wistful quality still endures - 100 years on from its debut.As she wanders through Te Papa, 16-year-old Ema Tavola hears the faint sounds of the Pacific hovering in the air.The murmuring and chatter of other visitors in the museum quickly fades into the background and she walks over to the row of red buttons.She picks one at random and soon a song of love and loss, underlined by the sound of Pacific voices in harmony, rises into the air.Far too soon, the tune fades to nothing but, feeling mesmerised by the song, she pushes the button once more and her reverie begins again.That was about 20 years ago, when Te Papa opened in 1998, and Tavola first encountered the famous Fijian song of farewell, Isa Lei.She says the song resonated with her immediately, sparking a feeling of nostalgia and connection with her Pacific heritage.So in this week's episode, rather than focussing on an object, we are looking at something far more intangible - a much-loved Pacific song and its power to move its listeners 100 years on from its creation."When I first moved to Wellington I was a teenager who'd just moved away from home, my family was all in Fiji, and I'd been living overseas. I grew up overseas and the sense of home was quite nostalgic," Tavola says.She wasn't exposed to much Fijian culture when she moved to New Zealand, she says, so Isa Lei made an impact."I grew up in a Fijian embassy house in Brussels so Fijian culture and representing your people and being aware of your country was very much part of who I am."Then when I moved here I guess Fiji became quite invisible so I guess that's why that exhibition and that song became such an anchor for me."That day in Te Papa, she felt compelled to play the song on repeat."I found this listening area where you could listen to sounds of the Pacific and there was this one button that started the song Isa Lei which is a kind of iconic Fijian farewell song," she says."It wasn't the whole song so I was always wanting more so I'd press it again, and press it again and then someone might come past and I'd pretend to look at other things - but that sharing and that moment is what I've always connected with Te Papa."And the song has a poignant story behind it, as Te Papa's senior curator of Pacific Cultures, Sean Mallon, explains."Isa Lei is a love song, or farewell song, that was written by a Fijian man. I think the first time it was composed and sung was around 1918…Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

This is a story about one of the most magical victories in New Zealand's sporting history, and the inspiring legacy that it has left in its wake.When Team New Zealand won the America's Cup on 13 May 1995, their 5-0 victory over the US caught the nation's attention in a way that competitive yachting had never quite done before.It's a story that has all the necessary ingredients: a great sporting rivalry between nations, a charismatic leader overseeing a dream team, and a "rocket ship" of a boat that helped the New Zealand team sail to triumph.Oh, and don't forget about that lucky pair of red socks.For a country that was more used to supporting teams on the rugby field, Team New Zealand's win in San Diego against Stars and Stripes was a historic moment which inspired sailors and landlubbers alike."Particularly because we’re an island nation, I think it strikes a very deep, almost primal nerve in us that we can excel at sport on the water," Te Papa history curator Stephanie Gibson says.Team New Zealand's success demonstrated to the world that New Zealand excelled in design and technology, Gibson says, and could compete with the best.So, in this week's episode, we turn our attention to the special boat that Sir Peter Blake and his team used to sail to victory – NZL32 AKA Black Magic.To be clear, there were actually two boats called Black Magic, NZL38 and NZL32, but it was the latter which was kept under wraps and only unveiled towards the end of the competition."The New Zealanders were doing very well in NZL38 and the whole world thought that was the best boat," says Gibson. "And then for the finals they swapped to NZL32 and that really freaked everyone out. It was like – 'oh no, it’s older, it can’t be as good'."[image:141715:half] Sir Peter Blake.By the time Team New Zealand reached the finals, skippered by Russell Coutts, they had become firm favourites.But they were facing off against the US – headed by four-time winner Dennis Conner – an American known as Mr America’s Cup, who had already attracted a degree of notoriety in New Zealand after walking off the very first Paul Holmes show during a testy interview in 1989.Gibson says the team didn't want Conner and the challengers to know too early that NZL32 was, in the words of then Team New Zealand sailor Joey Allan, a "rocket ship."Sir Peter's widow, Lady Pippa Blake, says some fans were confused as to why Team New Zealand had decided to use NZL32 for the final round…Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details