Canterbury Museum

Follow artists creating work on the dark Christchurch streets, see the creative chaos behind a world first exhibition and take in some cutting-edge contemporary street art. The short film captures what happens when an anarchic crew of street artists take over a museum. More than 60 artists from around Aotearoa New Zealand and the globe descended on Canterbury Museum in Ōtautahi Christchurch for the SHIFT exhibition in 2023. This army of global artists created stunning work on the walls, ceilings and floors in dozens of empty spaces across the Museum. Watch here: https://lnkd.in/ga8Yh87c

Roman numerals, lost carvings and a dark basement. Art historian Deidre Brown searched for a lost Māori carving for eight years. She finally came face to face with the ornate taonga at Canterbury Museum. Read more: https://lnkd.in/gVWV5zvY

Get into the September e-newsletter: A search for lost taonga, groundbreaking fossil research revealing Kiwi birds are Aussie immigrants, a blue mushroom cloud wrought in clay and killer snails that eat earthworms like spaghetti. All this and more in this month's Canterbury Museum newsletter. Read it here: https://lnkd.in/gUgTwrV6

WATCH: Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Polar Medal, one of the world’s most significant treasures from the heroic age of Antarctic exploration, has been gifted to Canterbury Museum by the Adson Trust. The medal, purchased in a private sale in the United Kingdom, will be displayed in the new and greatly enlarged Antarctic Gallery when the Museum’s Rolleston Avenue buildings reopen towards the end of 2028 after a major five-year redevelopment. The Adson Trust is a $10 million posthumous bequest left to the Museum by Blenheim man Arthur Henry Harrison in 2009 and managed by Public Trust. The terms of the bequest stipulate that the income can only be used to acquire objects for the Museum collection.

The hugely popular 'Quake City' exhibition, which tells stories from the Canterbury earthquakes, will be free to visit on Saturday 10 August and Sunday 11 August. Canterbury Museum’s special exhibition leads visitors through the first earthquake of 4 September 2010, the widespread destruction and rescue efforts of 22 February 2011 through to the long recovery and rebuild. Supported by major sponsor Natural Hazards Commission Toka Tū Ake. Read more: https://lnkd.in/gPMcEbeE

Be the first to read our stories, see our videos and hear about new exhibitions by signing up to our newsletter. Keep up to date with our redevelopment journey and much more, like stories of Antarctic survival and curious wonders from the Canterbury Museum collection, with a newsletter delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up here: https://lnkd.in/gs4hyBjX

Watch: Inside the doll's house from the toy shop in the old Christchurch Street is a tiny world of wonder. Every miniature item in Canterbury Museum’s beautiful doll’s house, from a chessboard to an umbrella, is being carefully catalogued. It is part of a project to create a digital inventory of the Museum's entire collection of 2.3 million objects. Read more: https://lnkd.in/gyVsgThH

The redevelopment of Canterbury Museum’s Rolleston Avenue site is on time and on budget. We gave ‘The Press’ a look around the construction site, where our twentieth century buildings have been demolished to make way for a new building and work has started to create a new basement beneath the Robert McDougall Gallery. Construction has also started on a 12 metre deep retaining wall around the edge of the gallery and the soon to be constructed new building. Read ‘The Press’ story and watch the video to learn more. We can’t wait to welcome you back near the end of 2028. https://lnkd.in/ggWH8Dmp Keep up to date with the Museum redevelopment here: https://lnkd.in/gs4hyBjX

We are often asked what we’re up to while our Rolleston Avenue building is being redeveloped. We gave ‘The Press’ a look behind the scenes at our work on running three Christchurch venues, creating a digital inventory of the entire collection of more than 2.3 million objects, and working on creating 60 exhibitions for the new Museum opening in 2028. The new exhibitions are a monumental task, researching, creating stories, designing, building and installing 6,500 sq metres of exhibition and display space, (50% more than the old Museum). This is all on top of business as usual for Canterbury Museum. Read 'The Press' story and watch the video to learn more. Read about whales, wildlife and what we're up to in our latest newsletter here: https://lnkd.in/g2Dy_g5v https://lnkd.in/gNnDepJ6

Take a trip to the new Canterbury Museum with this fly through video. Enjoy a sneak peek at the giant blue whale suspended in the atrium, the Māori heart of the new Museum and the revamped Duff Wing family cafe. Redevelopment of the Museum is forging ahead and we can’t wait to welcome you back towards the end of 2028!