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A young Canadian couple’s passion for New Zealand wine has proven to be a windfall for not one, but two, local museums.
Tom Long and Barbara Hilden recently took up management roles at the Mangawhai Museum and The Kauri Museum, respectively.
They say they fell in love with NZ after spending three months traversing both the North and South Islands in 2019 doing their two favourite things – visiting museums and vineyards.
“We got back to Edmonton and decided we wanted to move here,” Long says. “Barbara was offered a position at Puke Ariki in New Plymouth, so we quit our jobs and rented our house. We were on the verge of flying out when Covid struck and everyone went into lockdown.
“When it became obvious that the pandemic wasn’t going to be over in just a few months, we moved to Vancouver and then, finally, got to NZ in June this year, two-and-a-half years after our original arrival date.”
The couple say that as they travelled around the country during their initial visit, they were impressed by the quality of museums. This included both the professionally run facilities such as Te Papa in Wellington and the Omaka Aviation Heritage Centre in Blenheim, as well as the many community museums run mostly by talented volunteers.
“There is a level of expertise and artistic design in these museums that you wouldn’t see to the same degree in Canada, and the automatic involvement and inclusion of mana whenua stories is also a bit of a novelty for us,” Long says. “Canada is moving towards this, but in NZ it is just taken as a given.
“The dedication and enthusiasm of the volunteers and the level of community support for local museums is also staggering.”
Long says he fell in love with the Mangawhai Museum even before he was appointed manager and is excited to be part of its future.
“We’re just about to embark on the next five-year strategic plan, so it is great to be here at this planning stage.”
He says existing partnership and collaborations with groups such as the Daring Trust, the Historic Village and Mangawhai Community Park will be an important component of the plan.
“In five years’ time, Mangawhai will have grown substantially, so it will be important that the museum reflects the character and identity of Mangawhai.”
At The Kauri Museum, Hilden has spent her first two months as director on site “learning”.
She says this has involved talking with the people who helped build the museum, people who volunteered over the years, who work there now and who are helping take the museum to new places.
“There’s lots of overlap amongst those categories!” she says.
“As a newly arrived Pakeha person, I have a lot to learn about te ao Māori and my obligations as a treaty person in Aotearoa, and I’m lucky to have friends and colleagues within Te Uri o Hau and our board helping with that.”
The Kauri Museum received $3 million from the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) to, among other things, elevate Māori voices across its offerings.
“We are nearing completion on this multi-year project – our Research and Discovery Centre is open, we have a new Feature Gallery that showcases community talent, and the Gumdiggers Café is being refreshed.
“The highlight of the PGF project is an indoor Forest Walkway experience that our partners at Story Inc have been designing – I can’t wait to share that with everyone when it opens early next year.”
The Kauri Museum is celebrating our 60th anniversary this year.
“We started life as a pioneer museum. The stories we tell have expanded, and we work with a number of partners to roundly tell the story of New Zealand’s greatest tree – from Gondwanaland to Māori settlement and then Pakeha arrival. We’re also focused on the future to encourage environmental stewardship, preservation and protection of kauri forests. Museums aren’t dusty places of the past anymore.”
Hilden says the exciting part of leading the Kauri Museum is the opportunities ahead.
“We want to include more hands-on exhibits and bring the museum in line with contemporary best practice. We can widen not only the range of stories we tell but also the way we tell them. It’s now less about text panels on the wall and more about appealing to differing interests, learning by doing, making meaning and building relevance.
“We don’t want to be just a community centre, we want to be the centre of the community. This means co-curation with local artists and partners, and opening our doors (metaphorically and literally) to make the museum a gathering place that is inclusive, culturally safe and welcoming to all.”
Upcoming events
A Christmas Market will be held at the Mangawhai Museum on Sunday December 4, from 10am to 4pm. Museum manager Tom Long says volunteers have been working diligently throughout the year on some bespoke items to sell at the market.
The items reflect craft that is normally thought of as “women’s handiwork”.
Then, on December 9 and 10, the museum will host two concerts by the Mangawhai singers.
