Past exhibitionsNgā whakaaturanga o mua
Look at exhibitions presented at Te Papa, going back to 1998.
Wayne Barrar: Mai i te Pūranga Kōata | From the Glass Archive
Diatoms are tiny organisms that live in oceans, rivers, and lakes. The 19th century saw a craze for arranging the silica skeleton fossils of diatoms and other micro-organisms on glass slides for viewing through microscopes. Photographer Wayne Barrar has delved into this ‘glass archive’ to explore its microscopic wonders.
Closed
23 Sep 2023 – 19 May 2024
Exhibition Ngā whakaaturanga
یکی بود یکی نبود | Tērā te Wā | Memory Spaces
Persian stories often begin with یکی بود یکی نبود (‘yeki bood, yeki nabood’), or ‘one was, one was not’. Here, artworks by Selina Ershadi and Pauline Rhodes explore ideas of presence and absence to tell stories about place and memory.
Closed
23 Sep 2023 – 19 May 2024
Exhibition Ngā whakaaturanga
Hīnaki: Contemplation of a Form
This exhibition provides a broad experience of hīnaki (eel traps). As well as displaying these taonga, it focusses on two early museum expeditions, Māori relationships with two significant rivers, and contemporary artworks related or responding to hīnaki.
Closed
10 Jun 2023 – 19 May 2024
Exhibition Ngā whakaaturanga
Tanya Ashken
Over the last 60 years, Tanya Ashken has produced a remarkable body of work as a sculptor, silversmith, and jeweller. Her practice responds to the energy and rhythms of the world around her. This group of works highlights the diversity of Ashken's practice.
Closed
23 Sep 2022 – 19 May 2024
Exhibition Ngā whakaaturanga
Dinosaurs of Patagonia | Ngā Taniwha o Rūpapa
An astonishing exhibition of the dinosaurs of Patagonia, South America – which included the Patagotitan, one of the most massive creatures ever to walk the planet, life-sized casts, and real fossils up to 230 million years old.
Closed
16 Dec 2023 – 28 Apr 2024
Exhibition Ngā whakaaturanga
Kate Newby: SHE’S TALKING TO THE WALL
Nearly 1,000 wind chimes hang in front of you. Aotearoa New Zealand artist Kate Newby made this expansive artwork over 10 years. Through clay and glass, she explores how natural materials transform when shaped and fired.
Closed
9 Dec 2022 – 19 May 2024
Exhibition Ngā whakaaturanga
Forceps Delivery: A print series by John Foster
These 12 lithographs tell a story of family life, childbirth, and parenthood – unusually, from the point of view of the father. They offer a fresh view of late 20th-century New Zealand art from a largely self-taught artist.
Closed
17 Sep 2022 – 05 Mar 2023
Exhibition Ngā whakaaturanga
Tiffany Singh: Indra’s bow
Spices, herbs, gemstones, and other natural materials believed to have healing properties are arranged here in a rainbow, a vision of hope and new beginnings. Fair-trade bells hang on the ribbons, and below them is a salt mandala – a symbol of cleansing and ritual.
Closed
17 Mar 2018 – 20 Nov 2022
Exhibition Ngā whakaaturanga
Surrealist Art: Masterpieces from Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
Enter the marvellous world of surrealism. See extraordinary artworks by Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, Marcel Duchamp, Leonora Carrington, Man Ray, and more. Astonishing, surprising, and only at Te Papa.
Closed
12 Jun – 31 Oct 2021
Exhibition Ngā whakaaturanga
Modern Living: Design in 1950s New Zealand
The 1952 Auckland exhibition Art and Design introduced New Zealanders to a vision for a more equal, happier way of life that grew from the devastation of World War II. Modern Living offers a lens into this ground-breaking exhibition, and an exciting era of new design in Aotearoa.
Closed
22 Aug 2020 – 26 Apr 2021
Exhibition Ngā whakaaturanga
Tamatea: Legacies of Encounter
This exhibition presents a new acquisition, a painting by William Hodges, in conversation with Ngāi Tahu whānui taonga and artworks by Mark Adams and Colin McCahon. Together, they speak to the legacies – artistic, cultural, and scientific – generated by the first meeting of James Cook and southern Māori.
Closed
9 Nov 2019 – 26 Jul 2020
Exhibition Ngā whakaaturanga
Encounters
These portraits represent mana - power and prestige. Some trumpet the status of European royalty, Māori leaders, or prosperous colonial settlers in New Zealand. Others advertise the skills of the artist. All carry with them stories from the past into the present.
Closed
Closed 19 May 2024
Exhibition Ngā whakaaturanga