Wairoa Museum
Kopututanga Taonga o Te Wairoa
The museum is centrally located on Wairoa’s Marine Parade (142 Marine Parade). You cannot miss the red street canopy!
Opening Hours
- Monday to Friday 10:00am – 4:00pm
- Saturday 10:00am – 1:00pm
History
Our museum reopened on the present site in December 2001. Prior to that the museum was located in an annex of the Wairoa Library. There has been a museum in Wairoa since 1975.
The Musum receives approximately 8000 visitors per year. In the summer season 55% of our visitors are either from out of the Wairoa District or from overseas. The Wairoa District Council funds the core operations of the museum.
In March 2006, the $500,000 Museum extension was officially opened. This area provides much needed activity space for visiting schools and community groups as well as a workshop, storage space and utility areas.
Exhibitions
We have two exhibition galleries. Our main gallery features the long-term display – Whakaatatanga o Te Wairoa – Reflections of the Long River. This installation traces the natural and cultural history of our area from the time of first colonisation, approximately 1000 years ago, to the present.
The Wairoa District teams with bird life. Wetland and seacoast birds of the area include pukeko, weka, rails and bitterns.
Recent Exhibitions
Kahungunu Ka Moe Ka Puta – Te Pare Kereketanga a nga Rangatira
This was a collection of photographic portraits of Ngati Kahungunu tipuna, taken by Napier - based photographer Samuel Carnell in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
It was the 4th showing of the exhibition following Hawkes Bay, Wellington and Masterton.
Among the portraits was Wairoa’s only signatory to the Treaty of Waitangi, Matenga Tukareaho. His portrait was among 12 other images of ancestors from the Wairoa district.
Eyes to See
“An appreciation of people for who and what they are.”
By local photographer, Sharon Dickson, this was an exhibition of poster sized photographic images of local people engaged in everyday activities, from children at play to older generations in moments of reflection. This exhibition complemented the inaugural New Zealand Maori Film Festival held in Wairoa at the same time.
Loose Eleven
This was the first exhibition for an arts collective working in the Wairoa District. It offered a host of contemporary pieces from a vast range of mediums including cartoons, glasswork, oil painting, poetry and sculpture/modelling.
Leaf and Song
This exhibition, curated by the Forest and Bird New Zealand’s Wairoa Branch, featured many unique artefacts from native plants and wild life to ancient fossils, showing the diversity of Wairoa’s natural environment.
Manu Tukutuku (Maori kite) exhibition
This is a collection of kites made by Wairoa College Year 10 students and was influenced by ancient Maori kite forms. The students used natural materials including manuka, flax, toetoe,aute bark and raupo, in the construction. An art form, both spiritual and recreational and once in danger of dying out, has re-emerged as part of the Matariki (Maori New Year) celebrations.
Phyllis Simmonds – painter
This was a retrospective exhibition featuring 10 loaned and 9 contemporary pieces by seasoned Hawkes Bay artist and former Wairoa local, Ms Phyllis Simmonds.
Her later works featured views of the local and surrounding areas including Table Cape, Mokotahi and Kinikini, and Hawkes Bay and East Coast beaches.
From the Vault
A collection of local photographs, whāriki, paintings, postcards and other similar items taken from the Wairoa Museum archives and also from collections of local historians, will trigger recognition and personal memories of people, events and activities.
Education
The Museum has an ongoing educational programme for the region’s primary schools and pre schools attracting on average, 700 pupils per year.
Museum Friend’s Organisation
We have an active museum Friends group. Activities undertaken by the Friends include – the compilation of registers of births, deaths and marriages’ staffing the museum’ the production of museum publications’ and the organisation of museum exhibitions.
For more information relating to the Wairoa Museum, you can contact Museum Curator/Manager Jim Samson at Wairoa Museum, on (06) 838 3108 or visit the Wairoa Museum along Marine Parade, Wairoa.
Contact Details:
PO Box 390, WAIROA 4160
142 Marine Parade, WAIROA 4108
Hawke's Bay
Email: wairoamuseum@xtra.co.nz
Phone: (06) 838-3108
