Te Papa announces new $11 million nature and environment zone

Friday, 22 December 2017

Te Papa museum has announced an $11 million nature and environment zone, which will open in 2019.

An $11 million nature and environment zone will open at Te Papa in early 2019.

The three new exhibitions will explore the natural world, active lands, and today's environmental challenges, including spaces dedicated to earthquakes and fresh water.

The zone, which will display hundreds of rare specimens and include interactive hands-on experiences, will be free to visit, the museum said in a statement on Friday night.

A few favourites will also make a return, including the celebrity squid, and a revamped Edgecumbe earthquake house with a new interactive story about recent seismic shifts in New Zealand.

* Te Papa to open new gallery space in late 2017**

Head of science Dr Dean Peterson said it was time for the museum to create bold new exhibitions to reflect the changing world.

'It's going to be a huge space, with lots of chances to see some of the rarest specimens from the collection, like real huia feathers, a mummified moa foot, beaked whale skulls, and fragile plants collected on Captain Cook's first voyage to New Zealand,' Peterson said.

'There will be plenty of opportunities to get involved in hands-on activities, and to delve deeper using digital tools.'

Some of the options being explored included being able to smell a kākāpō, test a person's intelligence against a kea, or dance like an albatross, Peterson said.

'Whatever ideas we choose, there will be something for people of all ages, and plenty of ways to get involved in conversations about the future of our planet.'

Existing nature exhibitions will close for construction of the new zone from Easter, the museum said.

Those spaces were: Mountains to Sea – home of the colossal squid, and Awesome Forces – which features the Edgecumbe earthquake house.

Both have been in Te Papa since the museum opened in 1998.

The new exhibitions will explore New Zealand's land and wildlife, which forces underpinned the land's formation, and the environmental challenges at the forefront of New Zealanders' minds today, Peterson said.

The museum was developing the new exhibitions with the science community, iwi, environmental organisations, community groups, universities, Crown Research Institutes and Māori scholars.

'It's taking a community to build this zone,' Peterson said.

'We're looking at how things are explained through mātauranga Māori [Māori knowledge] alongside science. The research is grounded in so many different perspectives and areas of expertise.'

The new nature zone is the second phase of renewing Te Papa's permanent exhibitions, and will follow the opening of the new art gallery, Toi Art, in March next year.

Te Papa communications manager Kate Camp said the earthquake house would have a focus on the 2011 Christchurch earthquakes and last November's Kaikōura earthquake.

'I can't get into too much detail, because we're still working through what it might look like, but definitely the awareness of the different way New Zealanders think about and feel about earthquakes will be part of it.'

The museum had to be careful about how it designed the interactive experience, and there would be elements of fun, but also reflection, Camp said.

'In the earthquake house at the moment, some people love it and walk through time and time again, whereas other people find it very scary even watching other people walk into it.

'So it's about finding a middle ground.'

Camp reminded people the rest of the museum would still be open during construction, and there was still plenty to see, including the new two-storey art gallery from March.