Auckland Museum blog

When you watch Steve Hathaway’s footage of a giant orca scooping up a stingray by its tail, you are witnessing an underwater exposé. Orcas are not bumbling brutes; they’re nimble creatures with the nous to capture dinner without getting stung.

Steve’s extraordinary footage was also a revelation to Dr Ingrid Visser from the Orca Research Trust and has been viewed by millions. It’s just one of hundreds of underwater encounters that Steve wants to share with the world. ““I’m passionate about the ocean and want to show how incredible New Zealand’s underwater world is. Most people don’t realise how good we have it here, they will be blown away,” enthuses Steve, whose film work is on show in Alain ‘Sharky’ Coasteau’s ‘submarine’ in the Poisoners exhibition.

Steve Hathaw

Underwater cameraman is a niche profession, but Steve is determined to make it pay. “Underwater diving has been my passion since I was a kid, so I’m following my dream to capture the magic of marine life.”

From his base in Snells Beach near Goat Island, Steve has a charter boat rigged for underwater film production and supplies footage for the likes of BBC, Discovery, National Geographic and PBS.

One of his lucky breaks came after filming the dramatic rescue of a stranded Orca, which features Dr Visser and some locals literally shoving the young orca back out to sea and its waiting mother. In between film work, he takes tourists on guided underwater tours, supplying them with edited footage of their experience. He also writes a blog and produces a video blog that links with his articles in NZ Fishing News.

His favourite filming location is the Poor Knight Islands. “The Poor Knights are some of the best diving you can experience anywhere in the world and it’s right on our doorstep. Like all marine reserves they give Kiwis the opportunity to experience a piece of NZ coastline that is as close as what it would have been like when Maori first came to these shores. Without doubt visiting the Poor Knights should go on everybody’s bucket list!”

Steve filming orcas

Steve says filming in New Zealand waters is different to filming in the tropics. “The waters are cooler than the tropics, but with cooler temperatures you get kelp and seaweed, which adds diversity and interest. New Zealand is a stunning place and we can learn so much. We have it so good here and we need to appreciate it and look after it for future generations.”

And his scariest encounter? “I was filming a pod of orca and I was just so absorbed that I was blissfully unaware that the largest one was behind me, playing with my fins. I thought all of the pod had already swum past me, when all of a sudden this huge male orca was right next to my shoulder eyeballing me! It felt like my heart had jumped into my head, and it took a couple of minutes for my heart rate to drop”

But like all good camera operators, he kept his cool.  “My favourite part of the day is watching the footage and analysing my shots. Later that day I was shocked that the camera didn’t jump at all when I was filming this experience.”

Sharon Finn is perched on a ladder adjusting a cockroach that’s got itself twisted around the gilded cage of her chandelier. If you look closer, tiny artifical spiders, wasps, moths, and hornets dangle down from the cage. This fanciful chandelier, with its huge crystals and brass filigree, looks completely at home in the gothic-like domain of Toxica, one of the ‘suspects’ in The Poisoners exhibition at Auckland Museum.

Inside Toxica's boudoir

If Toxica is keen on collecting animals of the stuffed variety, Sharon also has a penchant for “a bit of taxidermy”. She has been known to keep 100-year-old birds and pussycats in the gilded cages of her chandeliers – and Toxica’s majestic owl holds great fascination.

Sharon Finn (yes, wife to Neil) is the creative mind behind Sharondelier, which makes individually handmade chandeliers, jewellery and lady frames. Her work has featured on fashion runways, art galleries, inside the stairwells of private mansions, on stage at music concerts – and now a museum.

The designer, who has recently taken to the stage herself as part of Pajama Club, approaches her craft with a great deal of wit and cunning. “We are into recycling [vintage items]. We buy old chandeliers and pull them apart, especially those with a lot of brass and crystals.” 

Remember Pollyanna and her blindly optimistic ‘Glad Game’?  It’s a memorable moment when she takes apart her Aunt Polly’s chandelier and hangs the crystals all around the window frame so they dance around the room. Exhibition developer Janneen Love says Sharon has spread the joy by giving freely of her time to create the chandelier. As the technician adjusts the lighting in Toxica’s boudoir, the chandelier glows from high up in the ceiling. The magic is already switched on.

Sharon Finn and her chandelier

Road kill. You’ve driven past it, you may have been responsible for it, but you probably haven’t stopped to pick it up and give it false teeth and googly eyes. Andrew Lancaster, on the other hand, has.

Andrew Lancaster's vampire hare, on display in The Poisoners!

An example of his work, a hare with vampire teeth and bloodshot eyes, is on display in the Lab of Madness in The Poisoners! exhibition, which has just opened here at Auckland Museum.

Throughout the almost 11,000 kilometres of New Zealand’s state highways, animals from possums to magpies lie strewn and lifeless. To Andrew Lancaster they are offerings to the art of the taxidermist.

“I live in the country so I drive out the gate and every other morning there is something that’s been hit, possums and rabbits, sometimes ducks.,” Andrew tells me on the phone from the Bay of Plenty.

Andrew learnt taxidermy as a teenager growing up in Yorkshire where he used to help his brother, who was working to become a professional taxidermist.

“You make as small an incision as you can get away with and get everything out that hole. Turn it inside out basically. Preparing the skin for mounting is the hardest part and that’s what I did for my brother.”

One of Andrew's mix and match creations

A baby-dove.... or a dove-baby

But it wasn’t until Andrew moved to New Zealand about 15 years ago that he took up taxidermy as a hobby. “I just thought it was a shame seeing them [road kill] all lying on the road.”

A few years ago he started playing around with the animals, mixing up body parts. “I got a bit tired of doing the everyday natural looking ones and with road kill some parts are badly damaged but there might be a nice pair of wings or legs so I just cut them off.”

He uses an old fashioned method of taxidermy, using wire and woodwool (fine wood shavings), rather than the expanding foam favoured by most modern taxidermists.

Not all his animals are road kill, occasionally hunters will give him animals to mount. And only recently an obliging thrush flew into his workspace, hit the window and landed dead on his bench ready to work on.

It’s not every day you get to eyeball a Giant Squid. Not quite as big as saucers, but the eyeball in question has the measure of me. It’s a lens with the power to light up its prey in the murky underwater world of the South Ocean. Seemingly frozen in mid swim, one of its arms curves menacingly upwards, revealing a row of perfectly-formed suction cups. This giant squid (Architeuthis dux) is long since dead of course, now stretched out on a table in the basement of Auckland Museum. For all that it looks like it was freshly washed up on a beach; this is actually the result of expensive surgical handiwork normally reserved for preserving human tissues.

‘It’s called plastination,” explains Janneen Love, exhibition developer for The Poisoners! exhibition at Auckland Museum. “It’s like extreme plastic surgery for squids.’

Plastination replaces fat and body fluids with silicone to give specimens a freakily life-like appearance. The ‘operation’ was carried out at Von Hagens Plastination facility in China, where they specialise in animal plastinations. Dr Gunther Von Hagen invented the plastination process more than 30 years ago and the technique has since become popular in universities and museums. Von Hagens was behind the hit exhibition Body Works, which gives visitors an up-close-and-personal look at the workings of 200 real human bodies, complete with organs and transparent body slices.

AUT University’s Earth and Oceanic Sciences Research Institute donated two squids to Dr. von Hagens and they were the first giant squid specimens to be plastinated. The entire process took two years, and getting a specimen with no skeleton to look natural was a challenge. Former AUT marine biologist Steve O’Shea told National Geographic magazine that ‘the giant squid – rare, delicate, and boneless – were the institute’s biggest plastination challenges yet’. The squid on display, which was plastinated at a cost of around NZ $1.5m, is on loan to the Museum for the duration of The Poisoners exhibition. In a series of talks at the Museum next year, Dr Kat Bolstad will explain the plastination process and background the stealth, diversity and bottomless appetites of these amazing invertebrates.

From tip to tentacle, this giant squid is an impressive 4880mm long and will be housed in one of the biggest display cases ever to be exhibited at Auckland Museum. Although more robust than a live specimen, the giant squid requires careful handling. It takes a five-strong team to carefully flip over the giant.

Production manager Andrew Jary says lighting objects is also a complex business. ‘If the lighting is too harsh, you can cause irreversible damage to objects. For natural history collection objects, we generally keep the light levels low, but because this squid is essentially plastic we can light it at a higher level.’

Love says many of the Museum’s natural history collection objects have never been on display before. ‘It’s a fabulous chance to see these creatures up close and personal.’

In a few days, the squid will be moved into the exhibition space, or more specifically a tank owned by the dastardly marine biologist Alain “Sharky” Coasteau. Visitors beware! This squid will be just as terrifying up close as the squid that lurked Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.

SNEAKY SQUID FACTS
Giant squid (not to be confused with colossal squid, Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, found only in the Antarctic) reach lengths of up to 13m and weights of up to 275kg (in large females; males are slightly smaller). They are found throughout the world’s non-polar oceans (including around New Zealand), most commonly at depths of 200–600m. Healthy adult giant squid do not come to the surface.

Welcome to this week’s preview of Tamaki Paenga Hira, an informative program currently featuring on Maori Television exploring 13 taonga Maori from the Auckland War Memorial Museum collections.

Episode 9: A tale of two pataka: Te Puawai o Te Arawa / Te Oha

This week’s program investigates two special pataka (food store houses) in the care of the Auckland Museum, ‘Te Puawai o Te Arawa’ and ‘Te Oha’.

Raureti Hemana, Napi Waaka and Jim Schuster, descendants of the carvers who built these pataka, introduce us to the histories behind these beautiful taonga.

Te Puawai o Te Arawa was commissioned by the Ngati Pikiao chief Te Pokiha Taranui (also known as Major Fox, of the famed Arawa contingent that pursued Te Kooti). Te Pokiha hired esteemed Ngati Tarawhai carvers Wero and Tene Waitere to build and carve the pataka in or about the 1870s. It eventually stood at Maketu for many years.

This pataka was known by two names: Te Puawai o Te Arawa – The Flower of Te Arawa, and Tuhua Kataore – The Pit of the Taniwha: named after the house owned by Te Pokiha’s father, Taranui. Te Puawai o Te Arawa was purchased from Te Pokiha by the Auckland Museum in 1894.

Te Oha stood at Te Waerenga, on the northern shores of Lake Rotorua. It was completed about 1825 by Manawa and his son Tahuriorangi of Ngati Pikiao.

Te Oha

The pataka was eventually sold by Tahuriorangi’s son Te Mata Tahuriorangi to F.D Fenton for 50 pounds. After Fenton’s death, the pataka was purchased for the Auckland Museum with a special subscription by the citizens of Auckland. Te Oha was accessioned into the Auckland Museum in 1885.

Te Puawai o Te Arawa is on display in the Maori Court of Auckland Museum. Te Oha is currently on long term loan to Rotorua Museum.

Tamaki Paenga Hira, Episode 9: Te Puawai o Te Arawa / Te Oha screens on Maori Television, Wednesday 14th December 2011 at 8.30

A black bear, mouth open, teeth bared

One floor underground an upright black bear stands guard over a host of animals and plants ready to go on display in The Poisoners at Auckland Museum. I’m down here, in the exhibition preparation room, with museum technician Dhahara Ranatunga to get a sneak preview of some of the creatures you’ll see in the exhibition.

Dhahara was a member of the team responsible for selecting, locating and gathering many of the 200-odd natural history objects in The Poisoners, a murder mystery that opens on December 16.

Arranged on shelves and in boxes are crayfish in pickling jars, snakes in whiskey bottles, birds, reptiles, beetles, butterflies and crustaceans.There are stuffed marsupials, what remains of a wolf when you take away everything except the skin and skull, and a king baboon tarantula (capable of catching and eating small helpless birds). It is not a collection of creatures you often see in one place.

What a wolf looks like without its bones and innards

When Te Papa developed The Poisoners four years ago the selection of animals and poisonous plants was based on their collections. Working alongside the natural history curators, Dhahara, (and her colleague Jason Froggatt), were given the job to find the same or similar objects from Auckland Museum’s natural history collections.

A possum forever climbing a branch

Some were easy. In a quirk of the taxidermists art both museums are home to possums in an almost identical arboreal pose – mid-climb up a bare branch. Others were harder to match. Specimens of the poisonous fly agaric mushroom and the malaria carrying Anopheles mosquitoes were particularly elusive, says Dhahara.

Since the Auckland War Memorial Museum was built in 1929 there have been eight decades of storing things, getting them out and putting them away again. It goes without saying that among this great haystack of history, science and culture some objects are easier to find than others.

For a start, not everything is always where it ought to be, or what it ought to be. The albino bird cupboard is home to a pigment-less sparrow, kiwi, blue penguin and chicken. But Dhahara says it turned out the chicken’s whiteness was work of chicken breeders, not the result of a rare mutation.

Some objects, like the big red, white-spotted fly agaric mushrooms, had to be sourced from outside the Museum.

“Fly agarics,” says Dhahara, “you’d think they would be common. I went out in March and April and found only one in the Domain.  In spring I spent the day out in Woodhill forest and found every species of mushroom but fly agarics.”

A not so blue penguin

Sourcing dead Anopheles mosquitoes, which are malaria vectors, was also tricky. An Auckland University researcher had thrown out specimens only a week before Dhahara made contact. Dhahara eventually tracked down a source in a Madagascan research centre.

And Dhahara’s favourite thing in the exhibition? A spider whose brain has been rewired by a nematode, but the full story of that has to wait for another blog.

Getting ready for the new murder mystery coming to Auckland Museum

What links a mouse dissolved by the digestive juices of a tarantula, a spider that’s been invaded by a nematode worm and malarial mosquitoes from Madagascar? They are all clues to a murder mystery at Auckland Museum this summer.

Along with more than 200 other strange, beautiful, creepy, dangerous and deadly plants and animals they are on display in The Poisoners in the Museum’s exhibition hall from December 16 2011.

All done! The Poisoners opens on 16 December 2011

When the exhibition opens, get your sleuthing brain into gear and work out which object was used by one of four equally suspicious suspects to kill the brilliant scientist Dr Felix Splicer. Clues will help you eliminate the innocent as you pinpoint the murderer and their weapon of choice.

Developed by Te Papa in Wellington The Poisoners came with a list of natural history objects, from stag’s heads to scorpions, used in the exhibition when it ran in 2007.  Gathering all the dangerous and delightful objects together for the Auckland’s Poisoners exhibition has been the job of technicians Dhahara Ranatunga and Jason Froggat.  The quest to find suitable specimens from our own rich collections began in March.

A grey wolf, albino birds, horseshoe crabs, blue beetles from Papua New Guinea and angler fish have all been selected. Jars of sea creatures pickled in alcohol have been brought in from offsite storage. A stuffed brown bear has been moved downstairs from its home in Weird and Wonderful.  Mosquitoes have even been flown in from Madagascar.

An albino house sparrow (Passer domesticus)

Over the next few weeks I will bring you behind the scenes stories from the exhibition, from the search for Anopheles mosquitoes to the tale of a spider whose brain was rewired by a worm.

That’s right. This weekend marks the very end of the Outrageous Fortune exhibition here at the Museum.

Once upon a time, a small Swedish band called Europe made famous the words ‘it’s the final countdown’, but I think Shakespeare said it best when he said “like as the waves make towards the pebbl’d shore, so do our minutes, hasten to their end.”

There was a time when all I thought about was Outrageous Fortune, I breathed the Wests and now it is drawing to a close. And what a ride, like a high speed chase in Spiller’s beloved Muffy; this exhibition with its many facets has been challenging, enlightening and ultimately so much fun! How often does a Museum employee get the opportunity to legitimately use words such as “Hoochie Mama”, “alien bong” or “fluffy handcuffs”?

What were my highlights? There are so many but here are a few…

The Cheryls

These 10 amazing women from around the country were selected from dozens of entrants to don the garb of NZ’s favourite she-wolf mother, Cheryl West. They braved the TV cameras, the paparazzi and mixed & mingled with the real thing. In true Cheryl style they held their own and did an amazing job. You can see all the goss and photos from their incredible makeover here.

Mothers of our nation

The 3D film

This was definitely a highlight for me in the exhibition. For the Museum to not only produce a missing scene with the real cast but to film and screen this in 3D no less. *Spoiler alert* Who wouldn’t want to see Falani’s backside on a large screen in 3D?!

How I ever got this many staff members to pose for me still remains a mystery!

The Rusty Nail Pub Quiz

Wes Dowdell aka Aaron Spiller was our gracious host on the interactive Rusty Nail Pub Quiz who bought us questions such as “Who was Rochelle’s mystery lover in Series 4?” and “What operation does Pascalle want in Series 3?”. Thank you Wes for testing our brain power!!

Choice

The Outrageous Launch

Beer, mini hamburgers, Hello Sailor, the fans, the cast, the crew! What a night!

Westside 4 life!

The exhibition!

And I could not leave out the exhibition itself. From the insights in to James and Rachael’s brainchild, to the magic woven by the art department, makeup and wardrobe teams, from the in depth look at the characters and what makes a West a West, to the set we watched this family come together, explode apart and come together again (on many occasions). 

Outrageous Fortune: The Exhibition

And of course.. the fans!

From literally all over the globe you’ve flown, driven, highjacked the local school bus and found your way to see this tribute to NZs most successful television show ever. Thank you for your support, your feedback, your contributions and your kind words! 

There have been so many highlights over the Outrageous period and it will be sad to see it go. What were your favourite moments?

And fear not! We have so many exciting things on the horizon, watch this space for information on the upcoming One Drop Foundation exhibition: Aqua made by the people who bring you Cirque du Soleil.

What is the definition of a Westie? When someone says their cousins from Massey are real ‘Westies’ what comes to mind? I think of black jeans, dark sunnies and leopard. According to Wikipedia’s definition of this group “The stereotype also incorporates black jerseys and old V8 cars.” The cars: on blocks, at the drags, modified, panelled, classic, suped up, the list goes on. And as Outrageous Fortune the exhibition draws to a close at the Museum, we thought what better way to celebrate this uniquely kiwi group of people than to have our very own car rally this Saturday.

Not paying homage to the cars that featured on Outrageous would be as criminal as the Keegan sibling’s outlook on life. From the precious Valiant –  which Munter named his firstborn after, and for which Aaron Spiller so graciously sacrificed his nostrils – to the blue panel wagon a Wolf-mirage arrived in to rescue Cheryl at Tutaekuri Bay… these cars helped to make the West characters real Westies.

Van arriving in style on his big day

Cheryl and Wolf - in true west style

We could have in fact had a whole exhibition dedicated to these cars. We settled instead for the infamous Tool Guys van and left room for gems such as the set and the 3d film!

The Tool Guy’s trusty work horse

So to celebrate the ‘Westie’ in true style, with the blessing of the New Zealand Hot Rod Association, Auckland Museum will host its first car rally. This Saturday will see a bevy of Hotrods, Classics and radically customised vehicles from all over Auckland, park up at the Southern entrance of the Museum and sit on display for OF fans, car enthusiast and families alike. And for maximum appreciation these beauties will do a circuit of the building at 2pm.

Now last year I wrote about an interesting competition we were running in partnership with Unitec called ‘Submit a Script’ and I am happy to announce we have a winner!

The idea was simple – write an exciting, short, script set within a living room situation. To support the competition we held two Script Writing Master Classes at the Museum in February and Unitec’s Gary Henderson shared some of his secrets, tips and formulas (yes, formulas – he was once a mathematician!) for producing a winning script. We had 25 happy script writers visit the museum for these workshops and by the close of entries we had received 23 fantastic scripts.

Unitec Workshop

The next stage in the competition was reducing these scripts down to a shortlist – once again we worked in partnership with Unitec and the 3rd Year Writing students from the Performing & Screen Arts Department helped shortlist the entries down to just 10. The 10 shortlisted writers were then invited to attend a full day workshop at Unitec working with lecturers and industry standard scriptwriting software Final Draft to tweak and re-work their scripts ready for the final judging.

Copies of the original scripts in the OF exhibition

Once the scripts had been reworked they were then judged by South Pacific Picture’s Tim Balme, who was a key storyliner and wrote the scripts for 22 episodes of Outrageous Fortune, Athina Tsoulis, Head of Unitec’s Performing & Screen Arts Department and the Museum’s very own Jo Brookbanks. The judges had a great time working through the scripts and finally they made their decision – and we are pleased to announce that the winner was Tresna Hunt with Two Sisters and a Cousin. Intriguing title!

The set we all know so well...

The finale of the competition will be the filming of the winning script on the set of the West’s living room in the exhibition in early May. Actors, Directors and the Film Crew for the shoot will be provided by Unitec students and lecturers who will be taking the opportunity to work in the museum and enjoying this great opportunity to work on the iconic Outrageous Fortune set within the Museum. Tresna, our winning script writer, is looking forward to coming along to the filming day and seeing her script brought to life in front of her eyes!

Stayed tuned and we’ll let you know where you can see the video soon!