Historic treasurers from the collections of the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu and Canterbury Museum are on display in a special exhibition.
Ship Nails and Tail Feathers is a collaborative exhibit at the art gallery showcasing taonga from the historic, and very different, collections of each institution.
The unusual selection of rare, exquisite, extravagant and even curiously ordinary objects and artefacts has been hand-picked by curators.
“They are a way to visualise history and to learn about history. So each and every collection item that's on display has its own story and speaks to a different part of history and different people, different events. They just mean what they mean in context of their history."
The exhibition is arranged into five areas.
“The five different areas in the exhibition determined what was selected from the two collections, Peter Vangioni, curator at Christchurch Art Gallery, said.
"We worked closely with Hatesa from Canterbury Museum and for instance, we looked at maritime objects from the Canterbury Museum and how they might relate to paintings from the art gallery’s collection."
The free exhibition closes on October 23.
- By John Spurdle
Public Interest Journalism Fund
