The Museum and Mahiriki
Back to plan the future

Convincing others the preservation of our historical artifacts is essential and securing the resources necessary to do so is a daunting task.
That’s what faces leading artist Mahiriki Tangaroa who is back at the Ministry of Cultural Development in her old job of Museum Curator.
Tangaroa worked as Museum Curator from January 2000 to November 2003 and upon her return in November 2010, it was like she never left. That’s because since she left to tough it out as a full time artist in the private sector, it seems everything at the museum froze. Files and records were not kept up to date and in a severe blow, information on a computer hard drive was lost.
That little progress has been made in the last seven years is not surprising considering the budget constraints the museum operation has faced.
The Herald caught up with Tangaroa on Wednesday morning at the National Museum.
Her re-engagement is part of a major restructuring that has taken place at the Culture Ministry which has seen some old familiar hands without positions.
Tangaroa reports to the Museum Manager and a Museum Assistant will soon be hired. Under this set up says Tangaroa, all three will work as a team.
Tangaroa says there may be a perception that her appointment will mean a greater priority to and emphasis on the visual arts like contemporary painting. This is not so she says. There will be an effort to attain and sustain a balance between the art gallery function and the responsibility towards ensuring the preservation, restoration, replication and acquiring of artifacts. While many historical artifacts are of common objects used in everyday life in the past, the workmanship, intricacy and complexity of some pieces classes them as genuine works of art.
Tangaroa says a number of proposals are being considered.
There’s a proposal to purchase local works to build up the Museum’s collection. Quality works by contemporary artists may be considered.
There’s a proposal to engage a local carver to create replicas of objects. These will be objects of significance. There will be a selection process and requirements concerning adherence to original detail. Achieving all this within the Ministry’s tight budget will be a challenge said Tangaroa.
There’s a proposal to give the Museum more publicity and to set up better signage to incre the number of visitors especially tourists to the Museum. Tangaroa says when she was last employed at the Museum it was not unusual to get up to 20 visitors a day and to collect around $200 a week in donations at the door.
There’s a proposal to establish a “friends of the gallery” group however, this is a long term concept said Tangaroa. Museums overseas had such support groups and they generated an income for the museum.
Another long term aim said Tangaroa is to have Cook Islands artifacts held in overseas collections exhibited here “on loan.”
However, a lot of initial ground -work needs to take place.
First we have to engender relationships with other people and communities said Tangaroa. No overseas museum will loan out their collections unless they are satisfied our facilities are up to international standards especially in terms of security and exhibition space.
Tangaroa says we would almost certainly need to have temperature controlled display cases and 24 hour security.
As to what remains of the current financial year and work plan, Tangaroa says under the work plan the expectation is to hold three exhibitions before end of June 2011.
She is currently working on a Photographic Exhibition with the help of Rod Dixon of the USP spanning the period from the 1880s to the present day. She hopes to involve 8-10 Rarotonga based photographers in this exhibition.
Tangaroa also has a major project in progress which is the “Atua-sacred objects of Polynesia” exhibition due to take place at the National Gallery of Australia in August –November 2012. Research work is in progress for the publication of a catalogue and of the 85 artifacts so far selected from overseas collections, a number are from various islands in what we now know as the Cook Islands.
The final number of exhibits may be less than 85 said Tangaroa because unless the artifacts can be authenticated they will be omitted.

By Charles Pitt

Herald Issue 463 10 June
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