Museum treasures draw

• Published date: 24 April 2024
• Author: Steve Carle
• Publication title: Whanganui Midweek

A collection of taonga (around 5000 items) is internationally significant and can be seen in the permanent Māori Court display

All the items in the court were used at one time.

A very important natural history exhibition at the museum shows one of the best collections of moa bones in the world. They were discovered and dug up in the region.

Dr Bronwyn Labrum, pou ārahi/director of Whanganui Regional Museum, has been at the helm for three years.

“Like most museums, we have about 5 per cent on display at any given time — a lot of items are fragile or light sensitive, so we can only bring them out for a limited time, then we have to rest them,” she said.

“We have a long-term display of the Lindauer collection of paintings of local rangatira [people of high rank], men and women. These are absolutely stunning portraits. It’s wonderful to see descendants come in and greet the portraits. Some we own, some we are kaitiaki [caretakers] of, for local hapū,” she said.

The big waka taua (war canoe) in the middle with display cases around it, is a memorable sight.

This is housed in a 1968 extension of the original 1928 museum building.

The waka was carved by a local Pākehā with the blessing from Māori. It would have been a fearsome sight with all the warriors on board.

Some of the taonga are held on behalf of local iwi, an example of the museum’s relationship with the local community.

Upstairs, there is a collection of exhibitions to do with Whanganui’s social colonial history — and how it developed as a town.

“There is a gallery devoted to travelling exhibitions with an amazing exhibition by an artist called Fortune, a knitted yum cha banquet — running till July,” said Labrum.

“We bring the best of the best of the rest of New Zealand to Whanganui. The museum is much more than you would imagine.”

“In one of our new exhibitions, our Māori adviser Rāwiri Tinirau, collaborated with local iwi about the Whanganui River, and it has objects in it that relate to how Māori identify with and used the river over time,” said Labrum.

The second exhibition that has been installed since Labrum became director is about Whanganui being designated a Unesci City of Design, called Whanganui Mūmū Whanganui By Design.

Over 800 years of designs created and used in Whanganui, including furniture and architectural design, pottery, and items from Whanganui Woollen Mills, including checked woollen blankets and Swanndris are featured, together with a classic Formica table from...