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Level Two should have provided the first experience of the ihonui space. The actual constructed space offered little evidence of the vibrant interpretative core outlined in museum concept documents. Instead, as shown in Figure 56, the ihonui, so influential in the redesign o f Jasmax’s competition entry, offered nothing more than a darkened void. Even the symbolism of linking sky and earth was lost following the decision to roof over rather than glaze the space, in order to restrict light into the museum. 1 Moving to Level Three, visitors should have encountered the environmental history exhibit People and the Land, conceived as a strategic transition between the scientific exhibits of Level Two and the cultural history exhibits of Level Four. As with the ihonui, this key integrated display was lost during the museum’s developmental process.

How was it possible that an exhibit considered so pivotal to the intellectual framework of the museum was never realised? While the delivery of the opening exhibition programme was unquestionably influenced by multiple factors including financial and spatial

constraints there is evidence to suggest that the content of the environmental history display was controversial. According to concept leader Geoff Hicks, People and the Land was a victim o f the official view that ‘opening day exhibitions should be celebratory of our culture and our natural environment.’ 2 Hicks maintains that ‘the contentious view of how bad we had been to our land led, in my opinion, to an institutional timidity that ultimately

7,Giles Reid, "Museo-Logic," Architecture New Zealand, no. Special Edition (1998). p.37. 72 Hicks, "Natural History in the Environmental Age." p. 188.

saw the People and the Land exhibition stall.’ ' Hick’s speculation reveals a new tension within the museum, namely the representation of a constructed image of the nation as distinct from displays based on disciplinary paradigms. As Paul Williams comments, one of the most unresolved tensions in the new museology is ‘[t]he issue of balance between the museums’ involvement in describing the social and political Zeitgeist, and helping to actively decide it.’74

Figure 56 Jasm ax’s image o f ihonui com pared to ihonui as constructed (Developed Design, Jasm ax Architects, June 1992, Section 6, p. 7.)

The multidisciplinary approach of this study offers evidence for why the display o f New Zealand environmental narratives might be considered contentious. An emphasis on the museum as an active agent in identity construction was accompanied by the realignment of representations of nature from an earlier engagement with scientific parameters o f ecology and environment to representations of landscape which were aligned with constructions of national identity. Prior to Te Papa, these two constructions o f the natural world were never encountered simultaneously within the museum. Representations o f the natural world in the Colonial and Dominion Museums focused on New Zealand’s scientific environment, including the documentation o f the rapidly diminishing flora and fauna. By the late

twentieth century over 90% o f all wetland habitats were lost, 44 endemic bird species were extinct and native forests were reduced from 78% to 25% of the total land area. 3 This

73 Ibid, p.188.

74 Paul Williams, "A Breach on the Beach: Te Papa and the Fraying of Biculturalism," Museum and Society 3, no. 2 (2005). p.83.

75 Hicks, "Natural History in the Environmental Age." p. 187.

statistic is remarkable not just for the extent of species loss, but also for the extremely rapid pace of ecological change experienced in New Zealand, a point succincdy articulated by geographer Kenneth Cumberland who stated in 1941 ‘[w]hat in Europe took 20 centuries and in North America four has been accomplished in New Zealand within a single century.’ 6

The representation of national landscape narratives however remained outside the realm of the scientific knowledge of the museum. Instead a national landscape image remained intertwined with identity construction presented through government strategies, literature and painting, and most influentially the tourist industry. Beginning in the nineteenth century, these constructions emphasised the uniqueness and often the superiority of New Zealand’s landscape, representations devised to attract both settlers and tourists. Over the course of the twentieth century, these representations increasingly emphasised a landscape of pristine nature as demonstrated by constructions of wilderness in the national park that shifted from an emphasis on recreation to preservation. This image evolved further throughout the 1990s, culminating in Tourism New Zealand’s first-ever global campaign T00% Pure New Zealand.’ Launched in 1999, contemporaneous with the opening of Te Papa, the campaign positioned landscape as the ‘brand essence,’ projecting an image of New Zealand, its people, environment and experiences as ‘untainted, unadulterated, unaffected and undiluted.’ K

Te Papa’s role as an agent of identity construction, combined with the intention to present histories interweaving people and environment created an alignment between landscape identity and ecological reality that had never before been encountered within the museum. I suggest that it is this disparity that provoked the ‘institutional timidity’ described by Hicks. Together, the absence of the ihonui and the People and the Land exhibit from the exhibition program, together with a dominant representation of ‘pristine’ nature within the Papatuanuku exhibits, combined to create a major intellectual gap in Te Papa’s opening day exhibition thematic. Yet this significant absence has been largely overlooked in academic

76 Kenneth C. Cumberland, ‘A Century’s Change: Natural to Cultural Vegetation in New Zealand’, Geographical Review, vol. 31, no. 4, 1941, p. 529 cited Eric Pawson and Tom Brooking, "Introduction," in Environmental Histories of New Zealand, ed. Eric Pawson and Tom Brooking (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2002). p.4.

77 Nigel Morgan, Annette Pritchard, and Rachel Piggott, "New Zealand, 100% Pure: The Creation of a Powerful Niche Destination Brand," The journal ofBrand Management 9, no. 4/5 (2002).p.4.

78 Ibid. p.7.

analysis. Environmental historian John M. MacKenzie offers one of the few commentaries, concluding that ‘Te Papa is there to remind Maori and pakeha of the land they have lost.’ 9

Even more surprising is that while the 2000 Museum Review highlighted the absence of exhibits that demonstrated the ‘convergence between the land and the peoples of Aotearoa New Zealand,’ the review maintained that Te Papa generally achieved the goals articulated in the 1992 concept.8" The review concluded that Te Papa operated as ‘a forum for the nation,’ evident by its popularity as ‘the country’s most visited and discussed cultural institution.’81Yet as Hicks pointed out, the loss of People and the Land ‘is a substantive challenge to Te Papa’s comprehensive claim to “tell all our stories”.82 Instead the majority of academic and media analysis has focused extensively on the cultural history content of Level Four and the display of the National Art Collection presented on Levels Four, Five and Six.83

Whenua versus Nation

Programmatically and symbolically Level Four offered the most direct representation o f a bicultural New Zealand. Signs of the Nation formed the centre piece, the only planned integrated display that survived the development process. Designed by the architects for the ‘cleaved’ space, Signs of the Nation featured a large ‘aged’ replica o f the Treaty of Waitangi suspended from the ceiling, with two equally large text displays of the three Treaty articles, one each in Maori and English, positioned on either side of the space. The cultural history displays of Tangata Tiriti and Mana Whenua were then aligned on opposite sides o f the exhibit. As has been highlighted by numerous critiques, this configuration produced a sense o f cultural bifurcation, with the cultural history exhibits developed with little historical or cultural overlapping or intertwining.84 Avril Bell likens the dual

representation to a ‘historical amnesia’ observing that no ‘more than minimal attention

79John M MacKenzie, "People and Landscape:The Environment and National Identities in Museums," in National Museums Negotiating Histories Conference Proceedings, ed. Darryl McIntyre and Kirsten Wehner (Canberra: Published by the National Museum of Australia in association with the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research and the Australian Key Centre for Cultural and Media Policy, 2001). p. 177.

80 Griffin, Saines, and Wilson, "Ministry for Culture and Heritage Report of Specific Issues Relating to the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa." p. 10.

81 Ibid. p.19.

82 Hicks, "Natural History in the Environmental Age." p.186.

83 The limited area provided for the National Art Collection combined with the incorporation of parts of the art collection in the exhibit Parade was the source of much contention. For further discussion see Paul Williams, "Parade: Reformulating Art and Identity at Te Papa, Museum of New Zealand," Open Museum journal 3, no. Policy and Practice

(2001).

84 See Avril Bell, "Bifurcation or Entanglement? Settler Identity and Biculturalism in Aotearoa New Zealand," Continuum: journal of Media <& Cultural Studies 20, no. 2 (2006), Maria Brown, "Representing the Body of a Nation: The Art

Exhibitions of New Zealand's National Museum," Third Text 16, no. 3 (2002), Dibley, "Museum, Native, Nation", Williams, "Parade."

[was] given to the history of colonial relations between Maori and pakeha.’8^ Closer examination of these exhibits also reveals the presence of the two distinctive geographic and political framings of ‘nation’ and ‘whenua’ embedded within the concept documents.

Check out our newest long-term exhibition

Blood. Earth. Fire -

Whängai, Whenua, Ahi Ka on Level 3. See page 12.

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