People in costume look to something happening out of the frame

LGBTQI+ histories of Aotearoa New ZealandKōrero takatāpui ki Aotearoa

Explore queer objects, artworks, and stories in Te Papa’s collections and discover more about the rich histories of Aotearoa New Zealand’s LGBTQI+ communities and icons – including the AIDS Quilt, Carmen Rupe, and Xena: Warrior Princess.

This is an ongoing online project. If you have any suggestions for stories or topics that you would like see, please email enquiries@tepapa.govt.nz.

A photo of a framed photograph of Carmen Rupe with big hair, a low-cut dress with large costume jewellery, and a carpet with horses running on it hung behind her.

Your life is important – your archive is important

Master’s student Felix Stribling unpacks their research into Aotearoa New Zealand’s queer heritage collections and the importance of centring queer and takatāpui voices in GLAMs (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums).

Portrait of a woman, wearing a black salusalu – necklace – made to look like a wreath of flowers

Salusalu (Fijian necklace) as a touchstone for a father

Artist and activist Luisa Tora shares the story of a treasured salusalu (necklace) and its intrinsic connection with her matavuvale (family).

Large-scale printed paper magazine titled Hero 1994 with 'visions unleashed' along the bottom right edge. Featuring colour photograph of orange flowers against green leaves.

Designing the Hero festivals

Peter Roband was a graphic designer in Auckland in the 1990s. He volunteered to help design branding and collateral for the 1993 and 1994 Hero festivals, including the programme covers. He speaks with history curator Stephanie Gibson.

A painting of a rainbow on a small canvas

‘Infinite people, infinite colours’: Gilbert Baker’s rainbow

Te Papa’s Gareth Watkins describes how an LGBTQI+ rainbow artwork by the famous flag maker Gilbert Baker has found a home in the national collection.

A man in a khaki coat stands against a set of storage drawers. On of the drawers is open and on display in it is an Imperial German flag featuring stripes of equal size in black, white, and red. In the middle is a picture of a large black eagle

The Imperial German flag: a symbol of colonisation of the body and gender

Land and resources are not the only things that can be colonised: the body and gender also suffer from its pernicious effects, as Pounamu Jade Aikman reflects on in this personal essay.

Three pou kātua, depictions of persons carved into wooden posts

Poem: hands on stomach lizard body

Poet essa may ranapiri responds to three pou kātua (stockade post figure) in our collection.

Four large bottles containing beer stand on four plinths

‘Otherness’ in a world of Kiwi male stereotypes: Grant Lingard’s ‘Strange bedfellows’

Jeremiah Boniface explores the work of Grant Lingard, whose practice in the early 1990s focused on addressing issues of sexuality and concepts of masculinity.

Art photo of two people with hooded tops on that look have waves of the ocean photoshopped onto them

Brey Kin Hearts and building backbones

Rex Letoa is a Sāmoan/French fa‘atama poet. A keen observer of the world around him, as well as the world inside of him. His poetry and storytelling act as a wayfinding tool back to his cultural and gender identity.

Black and white blurry photo of four people and the word Hero on the top-left corner

Our Heroes – Moana pioneers shifting mindsets and creating space

Tai Paitai reflects on people, places and a particular time in his life, post the Homosexual Law Reform Bill.

Photo of a large house, with creepers growing on its facade, and large windows. A manicured lawn is in front of the house

Felix Kelly, a gay expatriate

Art historian David Maskill explores the surrealist vision of painter Felix Kelly.

Crop from a poster featuring six people in traditonal Pacific clothing standing in a vast expanse of water with a vast skuy above them.

There are ghosts in this place: Growing up Sāmoan and queer in 1990s South Auckland

‘I, a Sāmoan gay, queer man came to know myself as not quite Pacific enough or not qwhite queer enough to be considered a central concern.’ Seuta‘afili Dr Patrick Thomsen reflects on his coming-of-age in Queen City.

White singlet with a black and white illustration of Batman and Robin kissing

Holy homoerotica, Batman!

‘We all wear masks.’ Poet Chris Tse looks into the hidden (and not-so-hidden) subtexts of comic books, and shares the role superheroes – particularly Catwoman in Batman Returns – played in his own journey.

Portrait of Chris Parker wearing a felt hat. The hat features tiny versions of the key New Zealand public figures during Covid-19, a bag of flour, a tiny self-portrait of Chris wearing his orange hoodie, and a tiny official Covid-19 symbol

This Is How I Felt

This digital portrait of Chris Parker shows the popular New Zealand comedian wearing the results of his creative response to the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown.

A single panel from a comic featuring a montage containing a policeman, a poster of Carmen Rupe, a rainbow flag and a newspaper

Poutokomanawa: a comic about Carmen Rupe

This comic was created by queer trans illustrator, comic creator, and designer Sam Orchard after seeing the exhibition Poutokomanawa: The Carmen Rupe Generation at the New Zealand Portrait Gallery, Wellington, in 2019.

Chris Brickell holds a pink Air New Zealand travel bag. An illustration of an aeroplane flies behind him with a pink flag saying ‘Pride’ behind it

Watch: What makes a queer object?

The world is full of queer objects. But what exactly makes an object queer? Can a telephone be queer? Chris Brickell, co-editor of the book Queer Objects (OUP, 2019), which features everything from a teapot to a sex toy, talks us through what makes an object queer with taonga from Te Papa’s collection.

A large quilt hangs from the ceiling of the play_station gallery. It is an almost empty, white space. Part of another quilt can be seen hanging to the right of the frame

A handshake, a quilt, the living

Artist Owen Connors and art curator Simon Gennard discuss the influential role that the New Zealand AIDS Memorial Quilt has played in their work as a marking point in a trajectory of queer history.

Group of people in an assortment of of costumes stand in a parade holding the rainbow flag

A history of pride in Aotearoa New Zealand

Historian Will Hansen explores the origins of pride in Aotearoa New Zealand, and documents tensions between celebration and protest, and at times, the necessity for both.

Piece of paper with the words ‘Chinese ring, removed 2/00, in situ 4 years’ and a coiled ring attached to it

Ring fishing

“I don’t know why I’m drawn to this object so much, but a silver ring fished out of your womb feels romantic.”

Vanessa Mei Crofskey offers personal reflections inspired by a Chinese intrauterine device (IUD) in Te Papa’s History Collection.

An array of items, including lubricant, condoms, lipstick nail clippers, pills, a hairclip, an other things

Trans Past, Trans Present: The Making Trans Histories Project

Trans people from their teens to their 70s were asked to identify objects of personal importance and to share the objects’ stories. What emerged was a quirky collection that is a testament to the diversity of trans experiences, and which disrupts established (and cis-written) narratives about trans lives.

Quilt consisting of 8 vividly coloured panels dedicated to people who died of AIDS. Each panel contains a mixture of words and pictures

Surviving the Plague Years: Living with AIDS

In 1987/88 Fiona Clark created two albums of intimate photographs of four New Zealanders who had been diagnosed with HIV. While Fiona visually documented their days, the subjects in turn contributed their own words and thoughts to the album. Michael Stevens has a copy of the albums on his book shelf. In this essay, he reflects on living with HIV then and now.

Two people seated look into the camera – one a man in an open shirt with a forest on it and denim jacket, the other a man in makeup wearing a blue shirt with a map of New Zealand on it

‘I am who I am’: Photographer Fiona Clark on Auckland queer culture in the 70s

Fiona Clark is one of New Zealand’s most celebrated art photographers. In this essay, she recalls her time as an art student in Auckland in the early 1970s, when she began to take photographs of the people and the night life around her.

Three women sit on a low brick fence, with a farmhouse-style building behind them to the right. Frances Hodgkins is in the middle, looking somewhat despondent

Frances Hodgkins: A portrait of queer love

Art historian Joanne Drayton explores the unconventional life of painter Frances Hodgkins, arguing that absence of evidence is not always evidence of absence.

This poster features a powerful and positive image of a trans person smiling at the viewer with the message ‘Indigenous Genders Are Real’

Indigenous Genders Are Real poster

This poster challenges the idea that there are only two genders and affirms diverse genders across indigenous cultures.

A blue box containing a wooden tree with apples, a ladder to climb to the branches, a basket for the apples, and a sign repeating uno/una in dieci (Italian for one in ten)

Hidden Agender: The life of Eugenia Falleni, a woman who lived as a man in the 1890s

Lauren Lysaght’s mixed media work Hidden Agender is inspired by the life of Eugenia Falleni (about 1875–1938), a woman who presented herself as man in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and whose life was placed under the microscope in 1920 when she was charged with murder and ‘sex fraud’.

Screenprint of a photo of a large group of police. It has been coloured green, with the occasional red helmet and shoes

Queering the Planet: life before the Human Rights Act

In 1998 Neil Anderson and Michael Eyes gifted a collection of over 20 queer-themed T-shirts to Te Papa from the 1980s and 1990s. Neil Anderson recalls his time as a queer activist before the Human Rights Act of 1993, which made it illegal to discriminate against people on the basis of their sexual orientation.

Drag in 1970s New Zealand

In this excerpt from Mates & Lovers, Chris Brickell explores the vibrant world of drag culture in New Zealand, when drag ‘jumped off the stage and into the streets’.

Carmen sits with a bowl while several men stand around with coffee cups and bowls in front of what appears to be self-serve breakfast

Carmen’s International Coffee Lounge and the Balcony

Carmen Rupe (Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Hauā, Ngāti Heke-a-Wai, 1936-2011) was a flamboyant transgender woman, performer, business owner, and anti-discrimination activist who became a cultural icon in New Zealand and Australia.

Panel of a quilt showing a portrait of a man and various scenes of mountains. It reads Arohanui Ian, He iti he iti kahikatoa

A rural love story

Te Papa is kaitiaki of the New Zealand AIDS Memorial Quilt. This panel was made by Welby Ings for Ian Williams. In the late 1990s, Welby wrote this reflection on their relationship and the creation of the panel.

Group of people in flamboyant costume in an array of colours and styles pose for a photo

The Dorian Society: An entrée into Wellington’s homosexual world

Drag performer Johnny Croskery’s album from the 1960s includes photographs taken at the Dorian Society’s annual fancy dress balls in the 1960s. In this excerpt from ‘Mates & Lovers’, Chris Brickell explores the origins of the Dorian Society.

M.T. Woollaston, Portrait of Rodney Kennedy, 1936, oil on cardboard. Purchased 1990 with New Zealand Lottery Grants Board funds. Te Papa (1990-0037-1)

Toss Woollaston’s love triangle

This portrait of Rodney Kennedy was painted by Toss Woollaston in 1936. The two men met at art school in Dunedin, and became lovers in 1932. After Toss’ marriage in 1936, they remained life-long friends. Chris Brickell tells their story.

Louise Henderson’s ‘Les deux amies’

Two female lovers are intimately entwined in a series of delicate interlocking planes. The work is remarkable not only for its stylistic innovations but also for the fact it depicts a lesbian couple — a daring choice for prim and proper 1950s New Zealand.