Matariki: The Māori New Year

Learn all about Matariki and see our events. Matariki is a time to gather with family and friends to reflect on the past, celebrate the present, and plan for the future.

• Mānawatia a Matariki | Celebrating Matariki 2022
• Watch: How to find the Matariki star cluster
• Matariki activity book
• Mānawatia a Matariki | Celebrate our New Year – exhibition
• Watch: Taikura Kapa Haka 2022
• View all

Chinese Languages in Aotearoa

Chinese Languages in Aotearoa is an ongoing project using language to highlight complex issues of cultural identity within various Chinese New Zealand communities. It begins with a series of videos, of people sharing stories of their connection to their heritage Chinese languages, speaking in Mandarin, Hokkien, Cantonese, and Hakka.

• Exploring Asian Aotearoa’s diverse cultures through languages
• Watch: Hakka, with interpreter Henry Liu
• Watch: Cantonese, with publisher and typeface designer Jack Yan
• Watch: Penang Hokkien, with restaurateur Tee Phee
• Watch: Mandarin, with poet Ya-Wen Ho
• View all

LGBTQI+ histories of Aotearoa New Zealand

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.

• Designing the Hero festivals
• ‘Infinite people, infinite colours’: Gilbert Baker’s rainbow
• The Imperial German flag: a symbol of colonisation of the body and gender
• Poem: hands on stomach lizard body
• ‘Otherness’ in a world of Kiwi male stereotypes: Grant Lingard’s ‘Strange bedfellows’
• View all

Making Histories: Communities and Covid-19

Making Histories is a Te Papa project which aims to support visitors and communities around New Zealand to reflect on and share their experiences of the Covid-19 pandemic.

• The community coalition bridging the gaps in Aotearoa’s Covid-19 response
• A year since lockdown: Collecting to tell the story of Covid-19
• Aotearoa speaks: Are we a team of five million?
• Migrant and international student perspectives on Covid-19 in Aotearoa
• Making histories: reflecting on experiences of Covid-19
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Fashioning ourselves: clothing, identity and culture

From woollens to workwear, pōtae (hats) to Panamas, feathers to fur, and khakis to korowai (cloaks). Explore stories that highlight the influences, industry, and imagination of fashion in New Zealand through our collections, exhibitions and research.

• Feathermania: Fashion to die for
• Blog: Feathermania: Fashion to die for
• Dressed: Fashionable dress in Aotearoa New Zealand 1840 to 1910
• How to care for textiles and kākahu (Māori cloaks)
• Watch: Designing wedding garments for 'Unveiled: 200 Years of Wedding Fashion'
• View all

Ferns in New Zealand and the Pacific

Ferns are so prominent in Aotearoa New Zealand, we even wear them on our sporting uniforms. From botany research to citizen science, pressed-fern books of the 1800s to collecting All Blacks and tourism memorabilia, our collectors and curators spend a lot of time with ferns.

• Identify New Zealand’s common tree ferns: ponga, mamaku, kātote, whekī, and whekī ponga
• What is the silver fern?
• King Tawhiao’s fern collection
• Want to learn the scaly tree ferns?
• The significance of the silver fern
• View all

Fossils and dinosaurs

Te Papa’s collections and research on dinosaur bones, animals, and plant fossils from past geological ages, and the people involved in the discovery of their remains.

• Big fossil duck discovered in Central Otago
• Find out about St Bathans' newest fossil duck on Sciblogs
• Fossil vertebrate collection
• Ancient colossal penguin bones discovered in Otago
• Martinborough’s cave of bones: How thousands of flightless birds met their end
• View all

Antiracism and activism

Articles on protest, decolonisation, and antiracism from our experts and across the web.

• The Hong Kong protest movement and Aotearoa New Zealand
• 1981 Springbok Rugby Tour – Cardboard and clown suits
• Watch: Stories of perseverance, from Parihaka to Polynesian Panthers
• Decolonise or indigenise: moving towards sovereign spaces and the Māorification of New Zealand museology
• Protest movements in our collections
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Māori

Biculturalism. Decolonisation. Mātauranga Māori. Dive into te ao Māori, explore Matariki and our iwi in residence Rongowhakaata, brush up on your reo, and learn how the kiwi lost its wings.

• Te reo Māori at Te Papa
• Matariki: The Māori New Year
• The Treaty of Waitangi
• ‘Museums are dangerous places’ – challenging history
• Rongomaraeroa kōrero: Dr Sandy Adsett
• View all

Pacific

Hear about tatau (Sāmoan tattooing), weaving in Tokelau, browse our Pacific collections online, and read blogs.

• Sāmoa
• Tatau: Sāmoan tattoo
• Tokelau
• Quiz: Tongan Language Week
• George Crummer: Picturing the Cook Islands
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Science and nature

Botany, fishes, birds, insects, fossils, molluscs – read about Te Papa's scientific research and stories from leading natural history experts.

• Fossils, dinosaurs, and taniwha
• Birds of New Zealand
• Botany
• Spiders and insects
• The deep sea
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History

Read about trans histories, the Moon Landing, colonisation and impact, Edmund Hilary, tiny activism, Scots in New Zealand, and so much more.

• Britten Bike slideshow: removing the fairings
• Listen: New Zealand’s Mid-Century Public Art panel talk
• Panel Talk: Housing for Health, Happiness, and Justice
• Voyage and discovery in the Pacific
• Quiz: How well do you know protest in Aotearoa?
• View all

Art

Explore the work of artists such as Tiffany Singh, Simon Denny, Colin McCahon, and Rita Angus through videos, podcasts, and in-depth articles.

• Watch: Robin White – The making of ‘That Vase’
• Watch: Rita by Quentin Angus
• Paris Collage Collective Surrealist Dreams showcase
• How to make a dadaist poem
• ‘Finale: Bouquet’
• View all

Audio descriptions

A selection of audio descriptions that have been made for exhibitions at Te Papa.

• Audio descriptions for Rita Angus New Zealand Modernist
• Audio descriptions for Surrealist Art
• Into The Open audio descriptions and transcripts, and accessibility info

Te Papa at home

Jigsaw puzzles, activity books, hundreds of hours of videos covering Aotearoa New Zealand’s vast history, quizzes, hubs on specialist topics, whānau challenges, and inspiration points to keep you active at home.

• Surreal activities

Online jigsaw puzzles using our collections

Take a moment or two to relax with online jigsaw puzzles using taonga from our collections. Come back frequently to find new ones!

• Related links for online jigsaw puzzles

Behind the scenes

Explore how exhibitions are created, how we care for our collections, and the research that happens behind-the-scenes.

• Te reo Kiwi: Are you using Māori every day?
• Conserving Rongowhakaata’s fragile ‘Iron Man’
• Cigarette packets and chocolate boxes: How we used to store our collections
• ‘It’s the objects that sparkle, not me’: A day in the life of an art collection manager
• Putting the pieces back together after the earthquake
• View all

Watch: 11 years of Te Papa videos

We’ve been creating videos and posting them on YouTube since 2009, so there’s no shortage of things to watch – from a live squid dissection to kapa haka to curators talking about art, there’s something for everyone. Even brush up on your te reo Māori!

The little page of calm

Relax with a jigsaw or quiz, watch a sunset video from Mahitahi Bruce Bay, or browse animals and other highlights from our collections. 

• Animals from the collections
• New Zealand landscapes
• Teaspoons
• Shoes
• Landscape representations from around the world