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Canadian Barbara Hilden is the new director of the Kauri Museum in Matakohe. Currently based in Vancouver, Barbara has been working for Puki Ariki Museum in New Plymouth since 2020, although the Covid border restrictions have meant that she has been working from Canada. Prior to this, she managed the Borealis Gallery in Edmonton, Canada, and was a collections consultant for the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.
Museum Board chairman Grant McCallum says Barbara joins the museum at a critical phase of planning and reshaping exhibition design and delivery.
“The Kauri Museum received $3 million of Provincial Growth Funds in 2020 for a makeover that includes creating a Centre of Excellence for people to have a deeper and stronger understanding of the significance of kauri,” McCallum says.
“Barbara brings considerable international and museology experience to the role and the Board was impressed with her vision for the future of museums and her focus on working with all our communities to tell our stories, as we chart a new path in a post-Covid world.”
Barbara and her partner Tom Long will move to New Zealand as soon as Covid border restrictions allow.
