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Whānau challenges

Design your own badge for your home team/club/kura

People have been wearing badges for centuries. They’re a very old form of identity making: showing who you are. They’re kind of like wearing a mini billboard. Maybe you have one of your favourite sports team or band or Pokémon?

Design a badge for a team you support or something you’re passionate about and wear it proudly!

Remember to show us! #TePapaWhānauChallenge

Inspiration

Collections Online

Collections Online is a great place to start for ideas for your badges. We have over 1,000 badges by a Petone designer named Trevor Dick, for example. He made them in the 1960s and 1970s and include sports clubs, police departments, marching bands, darts clubs... even birdspotters!

View the Trevor Dick collection of badges

Other collections include brooches by Jacqui Chan and brooches by Jane Dodd.

Browse ‘badges’ on Collections Online

Badge in the shape of an archway featuring an illustration of a blue heron and a red dart with the words “Blue Heron Dart Club”

Caption

Blue Heron Dart Club decorative badge, by Trevor Dick, 1946/1979, Petone. Te Papa (GH020704)
Decorative badge featuring a large flaming torch with the word Wanganui on it, and a green lizard standing beside it looking upwards at the flame. Underneath appears the word ‘cosmopolitan’

Caption

Wanganui Cosmopolitan Club decorative badge, by Trevor Dick, 1946/1979, Petone. Te Papa (GH021501)
Oval badge with red and gold border with the words Hutt Valley Pony Club Inc. Inside the border is a gold pony with perky ears and the letters N.Z.P.C.A

Caption

Hutt Valley Pony Club Inc. decorative badge, by Trevor Dick, 1946/1979, Petone. Te Papa (GH021857)
Upside down pink triangle with a white map of New Zealand and the words ‘We are everywhere’

Caption

We Are Everywhere badge, by the National Gay Rights Coalition, about 1979. Gift of Lesbian and Gay Archives of New Zealand, 2017. Te Papa (GH025206)
Black and gold circle-shaped badge featuring depiction of Mt Taranaki with a rugby ball underneath it and a sash with the words ‘Taranaki Primary School Rugby Rep’

Caption

Taranaki Primary School Rugby Rep. decorative badge, by Trevor Dick, 1946/1979, Petone. Te Papa (GH010716)
Eye-shaped badge with a black border featuring the words ‘Foxton Beach Bowling Club’. Inside the border is a colourful depiction of a sunset from a beach

Caption

Foxton Beach Bowling Club decorative badge, by Trevor Dick, 1946/1979, Petone. Te Papa (GH010754)

Videos

History curator Stephanie Gibson talks about badges and ‘tiny activism’.

Jeweller Jacqui Chan created the Host a Brooch project together with Caroline Billing of Christchurch gallery The National, in response to the Canterbury earthquakes.

Filmed in his studio, Warwick Freeman talks about how his works address issues of identity.

Ngāti Toa carvers Tana and Hermann Salzmann carve the waharoa (Māori gateway) for the exhibition Whiti Te Ra! The story of Ngāti Toa Rangatira.

Discover the art of tīvaevae (quilting) with Cook Islands women from the Wellington region.

Other resources

Te Papa and Auckland Museum staff submissions!


  • Drawing of a badge with a green circle containing the words ‘Craft and Kittens Club’. Inside the circle is a scene of a woman, wearing green, painting, flanked by two kittens. Red and yellow bunting flies above her

    ‘Craft & Kittens Club’ badge, by and courtesy of Jane Grofsky


  • Drawing of a badge with a grey circle saying ‘Masks, the must-have accessory of 2020 – according to latest research’. Inside the circle is a woman wearing blue, wearing a face mask

    ‘Masks – the must-have accessory of 2020’ badge, by and courtesy of Bev Moon


  • Drawing of a badge shaped like a snow globe, with a snow globe inside it containing a penguin and a fish

    ‘In My Bubble’ badge, by and courtesy of Anonymous


  • 1, a love heart, 2, someone coughing into their arm, 3, washing hands, and 4, a person at home

    ‘Covid-19 Survivors Club’ badge, by and courtesy of Steph Gibson


  • Drawing of a badge featuring a depiction of the coronavirus with a big red circle around it and line across it, suggesting ‘no’

    ‘Ban the Rona’ badge, by and courtesy of Michael Rogers


  • Drawing of a badge, featuring a red circle containing the words ‘All by myself, established 2020’. Inside the circle is a bearded man wearing a green shirt, waving

    ‘All by myself’ badge, by and courtesy of Daniel Crichton-Rouse

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