Events

29 April 2008

Place in the Museum Space: The Smithsonian Museum and NZ Cultural Institutions

Lecture

In a shared lecture, the influence of cultural institutions on historic and contemporary culture is explored, first by Sally Gregory Kohlstedt who is Professor of History of Science at the University of Minnesota and then by Darcy Nicholas, a leading Contemporary Maori painter, sculptor, arts commentator and writer responsible for the development of the Pataka Museum in Porirua.Gregory Kohlstedt is in New Zealand as a Fulbright Fellow in the History Department at the University of Auckland, where she is co-teaching a course with Professor Ruth Barton. She will discuss the role of Smithsonian naturalists and anthropologists, their collections, and the exhibitions that contributed to shaping the identity of United States nationhood In the late 1800's.In the second part of the lecture Darcy Nicholas, General Manager of Community Services for Porirua City Council, will look at the ways in which cultural institutions have shaped perceptions of indigenous practice and belief; effectively recolonising Māori by the imposition of Western academic process. In 1984 Nicholas won a Fulbright Cultural Award to study and observe contemporary Native and African American arts.

Librarianship, Information and Museum Studies

Organisation:

Auckland Museum