Meet the Rotorua Museum Team – Collections
Tuesday, 9 January 2018
Over the next few months we will use the blog to introduce you to some of the people behind the scenes at Rotorua Museum. This week we will focus on the people who look after the precious taonga in our collection and learn about what makes them passionate about their role.
MUSEUM PREPARATOR
Natascha Hartzuiker
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What is your role at Rotorua Museum, and how long have you been working here?
I started working at the Museum five years ago as the on-call Preparator and during that time I have also assisted in nearly all other departments within the Museum. Now as the full time Preparator I get to prepare and install the exhibitions as well as supporting the Collections team. Within my Collections role I look after the care and preservation of the Fine Art and Photography items.
What do you love about working at Rotorua Museum?
I remember being asked to describe myself in one word during an interview once. That one word would be “creative”. The Museum has been a fantastic, innovative environment where I get to design and create as much as they let me. Being part of the team that bought to life Nightmare at the Museum was one of the most rewarding events that I have been involved with. Making props such as the spider’s lair was one of the most unusual and fun ways to spend your working day. It’s amazing what you can do with expanding foam and hot glue!
What influenced you to work in a museum?
My background in photography and my love for all things art related have been the greatest influence to working within the Museum. Having learnt practical skills and process driven art disciplines over the last fifteen years have certainly helped within the Preparator role. Now that I also get to look after the Fine Art and Photography I learn something new every day about our heritage and the people that have left behind their story.
COLLECTION CURATOR – TAONGA MAORI
Manaaki Pene
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What is your role at Rotorua Museum, and how long have you been working here?
My role has changed a few times since I first started back in 2005, but my current role is Collection Curator – Taonga Māori. I am responsible for the preservation of the taonga collection and making sure the documentation on our database system is kept up to date. Alongside that comes the development and strengthening of relationships with whānau and institutions who own some of the taonga in our care.
What do you love about working at Rotorua Museum?
I am passionate about history so there are many aspects of my role at the Museum that I love. I guess if I had to pick two things – it would be, first off the ability to work with significant Te Arawa taonga, and secondly, understanding the whakapapa connections of Te Arawa whānau to these taonga. This understanding makes working with these taonga all the more special because you know who the whānau are that whakapapa to these taonga.
What influenced you to work in a museum?
I was learning how to weave many years ago and Māori Textiles Conservator Rangi Te Kanawa was invited to speak at our last class. She talked about her conservation work and how she restored historical taonga. I was fascinated and thought that was exactly what I wanted to do – I wanted to look after taonga.
When I realised that conservation work required you to have a good understanding of science, and you could only study this outside of NZ – I thought of another way I could look after taonga. And so my Postgraduate Diploma in Museum Studies began and I have never looked back.
COLLECTION CURATOR – SOCIAL HISTORY
Rosemary Deane
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What is your role at Rotorua Museum, and how long have you been working here?
My title is Collection Curator – Social History. What that means is I look after the preservation of the Social History collection and make sure it is properly documented on our database. I also carry out research into objects in the collection, mainly to provide the stories about items going into exhibitions, for writing blogs, and assisting people in enquiries. I have only been at Rotorua Museum since April 2016, so not that long.
What do you love about working at Rotorua Museum?
I love the stories of Rotorua which are told through the objects. For example we have a number of objects from the Bath House when it operated as such, including electro-therapy machines and other pieces of equipment. Also the stories of tourism in Rotorua, which goes way back to before the Tarawera eruption, there are objects which relate to all those facets of Rotorua’s history and culture. The Collections team is based at our offsite store, but I loved working the Bath House when we had exhibitions to install or de-install or assisting the team there.
What influenced you to work in a museum?
My first museum job was at the Maritime Museum in Auckland, where I was the librarian but I also worked on exhibition content. One exhibition was about the Orpheus, which was a British naval ship which wrecked off the west coast of Auckland in 1864. We put an advertisement in the newspaper asking for people who had objects relating to the Orpheus, and ended up going on a road trip to loan these objects, most of which were in the area near the original wreck. It was absolutely fascinating, and got me very interested in researching objects and telling their stories, so I decided to re-train in Museum Studies.
Keep an eye out to meet more of the Rotorua Museum team over the coming months.
