Responding to art – what would your response be?

Art is for everyone. Here we explore some of your responses to artworks, exhibitions, and our collections.

A black slide with a lot of round and triangular shapes in a group.

Listen: Warm sounds and cold twinkles

Music production and composition students from Massey University were invited to explore artworks from This Natural World and choose one to respond to with a musical composition. View the artworks, discover what was behind their choices, and then listen to their compositions.

A rabbit’s fur: Documenting the natural world through art

Students from Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington’s School of Design Innovation visited Te Papa to learn about animal illustration. After looking at these works, the students drew their own animal illustrations in Te Papa’s Te Taiao | Nature space.

A young baby with a bonnet and white dress on is lying on its back with hands and one leg in the air.

‘I hope my baby is just as jazzy as this one’ – Exploring the art collection with Pātū Toi Art Wall

Pātū Toi ǀ Art Wall in Toi Art on Level 4 is where visitors can choose their favourite from 457 artworks in the national art collection. They can post a comment about why they love it, then see it projected on the wall at a glorious scale. Curator Art Lizzie Bisley shares a few of her top picks.

Several women standing in a group in the late afternoon sun. Some of them are holding bundles of tapa.

‘Ahu: Ngā wairua o Hina – Making for the past, present, and future

Mātauranga Māori Curator Isaac Te Awa and Co-Director Pauline Reynolds take us through some of the makers’ reactions to the Shaw book at the 2023 wānanga in Tahiti.

A woman sits at a desk and is painting flowers that are in a vase in front of her. She is in a white lab coat.

At Nancy Adams’ Desk: Juvenilia and wildflowers

As part of a summer research project, Lucia Adams from Botany and Annie Barnard from Art took a series of field trips to sites that were important in Nancy Adam’s life and work. Here is the third and final in a series of blogs documenting these trips.

‘It is a very accessible artform’: Talking collage with Paris Collage Collective

Paris Collage Collective is an online community of collage makers, who respond to regular creative challenges. Over the past couple of years, a lot of those challenges have used photos from our collections.

“There is nowhere to go if something’s inside of you”: Wellington High School’s Elijah Neilson on Tony Fomison

“I think much of what he paints is an expression of feelings too big for your body. He makes these things that impress upon you from the outside. That can feel better than something emerging from the inside, because there is nowhere to go if something’s inside of you.”

“I really enjoy the way that they make me think”: Wellington High School’s Rose Wallington on Tony Fomison

“I still kinda hate the way that they look, but I really enjoy the way that they make me think.”

“The themes in his work always have a place in society”: Wellington High School’s Aroha Millar on Tony Fomison

“The themes in his work always have a place in society – especially today where so many people are outcasts from their own countries.”