The first person to guess what I'm doing in this picture wins a trip.
Just got back from a trip to Australia and New Zealand. Here's a quick rundown on the state of museums in the countries.
The Auckland museum is cool. It's being upgraded to include cafes and whatnot. Top floor is a war memorial, which is a bit boring, but they have a lot of good exhibits, including an interesting one that simulates what would happen to you in your harbour side home if a new volcano were to rise up out of Auckland harbor. The whole house rattles and shakes and then you watch out your picture window as a volcano rises up and blows you away. Very scary for small children.
Auckland Art Gallery is really very good. They had a contemporary exhibit called "Mystic Truths" that was very well done. The security guards were obnoxious as usual.
Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney is also very good and seems to have something of an international reputation. Only one floor was open (rest closed for installation) but that floor had an interesting show called "The Hours."
The Art Gallery of New South Wales is also quite good. It too has been expanded and cafes added -- seems to be all the rage.
We also went to the Australian Museum, which is natural history, but only visited the gift shop. My impression is that the museum itself is kind of behind the times.
Up in the Port Douglas area we went to the Daintree Entomological Museum, which is very cool. The collection is great; the concept of a kind of home-made, self-built museum with quite a few live insects is cool; and the grounds are fantastic. The butterfly enclosure was also nice -- they don't try very hard to keep the butterflies inside so must keep restocking it.
Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park is a kind of living museum documenting the aborigine way of life. My cohorts weren't very impressed, but I liked it, maybe because I feel some kinship with their timeless mythology.
Those were the highlights for the museums. The picture at the top is of the Rotorua Museum in New Zealand, which we admired for its architecture (didn't go in).
3 comments:
I visited the Australian Museum in 2002 and it seemed like they were in a transition stage with their permanent exhibits. I'd be interested to see it now, especially with your first impression in mind. They did have a stellar exhibit on tattoos and body art though....
Interesting, Kathy. My impression was based on hearsay -- could be that the people I heard hadn't been there in a few years...
I vaguely recall liking the Melbourne (or was it Sydney?) zoo...and the giant earthworms. I was six, though, so memories are hazy (and most from Rotorua I seem to have blocked).
I think the most standout "museumlike" experience for me was going on the clipper R. Tucker Thompson in New Zealand. Tall ships are great mobile museums (or can be).
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