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Posted at 12:31PM on 16 May 08. Permalink.

Making Auckland Museum more relevant to Auckland is a little redundant because it is a collection of national significance. I would suggest a good rule of thumb is to take a look at Te Papa and don't do that. We need at least one un-dumbed down museum in this country.

I am dissapointed at the staff losses - erosion of institutional memory is an ugly thing, especially as a helluva lot more information and interpretation is stored with those people than is sitting in Vernon.

Posted at 1:00PM on 16 May 08. Permalink.

Chris C...I'm with you Graham, both a wonderful guy and major contributor for decades.

Chris was the tour manager on the Screaming Meemees album tour of NZ in 1982. I remember sitting down the band before to introduce them to their temporary boss, and he said, and the mists of the last 26 years mean I'm paraphrasing: We have a job to do. That job is to sell your record. You may not like me at the end of this job but we will do it well.

And do it well he did but I received at least a dozen calls from distraught band members complaining that he was a very hard task master, closing house bars after gigs, fining people for not rising etc.

When I arrived in Napier for the last part of the tour, we talked about it, and Chris said simply: this is an important record and needs to be heard. I'm not here to make friends. I'm here to get the music to as many people as possible.

I guess that held true all along (although despite it all he made many friends, myself included). As I said somewhere else NZ has been lucky enough to have a fair number of record execs who who were not only good at their jobs, but went so much further than they needed to, and Chris is one of those. I wish him well.

Posted at 3:02PM on 16 May 08. Permalink.

Museum in Auckland

Locals (in Auckland's case it would be anyone who pays an Auckland levy) should receive a get in free card. With special exhibitions of course everyone should expect to pay. Invercargill expects outside visitors to pay and locals not.

I think all other adults should pay a compulsory $5 if single, $10 for a family group, but access to the War Memorial area and research library level should be free for all. Students and one accompanying adult should be free.

The employees should be retained and a grant from Government to save what is essentially a tourist mecca.

Interactive projects inside and outside the museum to be investigated. The earthquake house is great. People love to be involved, especially tourists.

Whenever I have been away it is the unexpected event that I always remember, like finding a zoo in an ordinary town park (Like Albert Park). Or being surrounding by thousands of cyclists in competition under the Eiffel Tower. I still have the stickers! Not to mention Australia, lolloping past a bush area on a camel, spotting a man facing us having a pee. His family waiting in a car on the road were in hysterics at his embarrassment.

Perhaps we could engage with the performing arts (if not happening already) to conduct their readings or dancing or singing on site, where people can listen. But always it should be in conjunction with New Zealand's history. e.g. a play on the Maori wars could be workshopped in the Pacific history area. A dance performance of the journey to Aotearoa/New Zealand in the room housing the 'boats'.

The teddy bear's picnic, opera in the park, et cetera, should have some comparative activity happening in the Museum for people to pick up on. Anything of course should be in a dignified manner in keeping with a War Memorial Museum. An antique teddy display in the Centennial street, and an Alice in Wonderland tea party with child actors from local schools. Night at the Museum alongside the movie was a brilliant idea. But, did it encourage people in?

I hope they don't have money troubles because of the changes they made to the exhibits. I liked the Egyptian mummy right where it used to be. Was the public asked what they thought before changes were made.

Many people don't go because they are confronted by a burly guard with a hand out for the 'donation'.

Posted at 3:43PM on 16 May 08. Permalink.

The Auckland Museum staff cuts are concerning, in that it is not being delivered with a dream, or vision of revitalisation.

It sounds like cost cutting and mean management. I've never been there but losing expertise is gonna be limiting.

Koha is koha - go with that and don't expect it to cover costs without local/national funding.

I like all manner of displays, "virgin in a condom" was not on the right site in my book. In Christchurch the "Lock Stock & Two smoking barrells" display on firearms & shivs etc was a great romp, their peace exhibition was great & their Polish one was fantstic as well.

Just an aside- the famous "Burger Bunker" on Main South Rd Hornby is being considerd for heritage status.

It's a concrete building shaped like, a burger. Ugly as sin and fantastic that it's getting recognised for what it is.

Posted at 12:20AM on 18 May 08. Permalink.

I don't understand. They are looking at making technicians and conservation staff redundant but on F5 of the 17 May Herald they've busy advertising for new staff for:

Leisure and Learning
Corporate Services
Customer Services
Display Technicians
Museum writer and publicist
Marketing Co-ordinator.

Does that equal technicians, conservation staff and registration staff? Do they get to apply for their own jobs but are called something different?

Posted at 12:57AM on 18 May 08. Permalink.

Not many Kiwi artists sing about politics -- I wonder why not?

its a small country, open your mouth and it can come back to bite you.
I remember moana declining to comment on an radio nz discussion panel in 2005 for just such reasons.

Posted at 7:39PM on 18 May 08. Permalink.

The Museum
I visit the Museum every other month on average, partly because it is high on the list of places to take visiting academics. The latter are particularly impressed with the Maori and Paciifc Halls, the main reason for visiting the Museum.

First, I have been impressed by the number of people in the Museum over the past year or two, especially since the opening of the extension. If anything, it has been a little too crowded in the weekends. What are the actual visitor numbers?

Call me elitist, but like everybody I know, I am absolutely appalled at the prospect of a Te Papa-style dumbing down of the Museum. Sure, there are one or two areas that could do with a little freshening up, but that doesn't mean that we should turn the Museum into a cross between funfair and a garage sale pitched at the average 12-year old. Why can't one of the two best museums in the country be serious?

And the treatment of the staff is so stupid it defies belief. Apart from the loss of institutional memory referred to above, there is the problem of survivor syndrome, the demoralisation of the surviving staff. Clearly one doesn't need to know anything about personnel psychology to be a museum administrator, but surely there must be someone who can put a stop to this nonsense.

It really does look like yet another import trying to make a mark, and setting things back years. We've just had this experience with another largely publicly funded cultural institution in Auckland -- do we need to go through this again?

The bottom line is that, if they Te Papa-ise the Museum, I and a lot of other peole will stop visiting.

That awful, meaningless, schmaltzy pap about "vision", "engagement", "ideas-driven people", etc, is so utterly depressing. It does not auger well for the future.

Posted at 10:30PM on 18 May 08. Permalink.

Sorry for the up heaval those at the Auckland Museum are going through.

Te Papa is a real draw card for Wellington, anyone I know who goes for a few days pops in. I'm a museum junkie and would go anyway. If the idea is to get more people going and having open letures, I'm in favour.

That's not to say I'm in favour of staff cuts.

A pity the museum doesn't have a memory of the 80s/90s social up heaval of NZ society.