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Museum of New Zealand

Te Papa Tongarewa

Free museum entry for New Zealanders and people living in New Zealand

International visitor tickets

Fabulous fashion - stories of LGBTQI+ fashion in Aotearoa

Clothes are a form of self-expression.

  • Mid shot of 4 women outdoors. Vanessa wears an elegant white wedding dress with a sculpted sweetheart neckline, a gold locket and long transparent veil. On the left, the 3 bridesmaids are wearing white floral headpieces, empire line dresses patterned with flowers and a lilac waist sash, each holding bouquets. Each bouquet is white with a pink lily in the center.

    Vanessa Wedding

    Browse the collection of photographs from the wedding of trans woman Vanessa Wallis Wedding.
    Vanessa made and designed her own clothing, including her wedding dress.

  • Portrait of Chris Parker wearing a felt hat. The hat features tiny versions of the key New Zealand public figures during Covid-19, a bag of flour, a tiny self-portrait of Chris wearing his orange hoodie, and a tiny official Covid-19 symbol

    This Is How I Felt

    This digital portrait of Chris Parker shows the popular New Zealand comedian wearing the results of his creative response to the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown.

  • Xena's outfit

    Xena’s costume

    Ngila Dickson one of the makers of Xena's costume, and History Curator Claire Regnault, discuss the creation of Xena, how she changed New Zealand's film industry, and how she became an international feminist icon.

  • White singlet with a black and white illustration of Batman and Robin kissing

    Holy homoerotica, Batman!

    ‘We all wear masks.’ Poet Chris Tse looks into the hidden (and not-so-hidden) subtexts of comic books, and shares the role superheroes – particularly Catwoman in Batman Returns – played in his own journey.

  • Screenprint of a photo of a large group of police. It has been coloured green, with the occasional red helmet and shoes

    Queering the Planet: life before the Human Rights Act

    In 1998 Neil Anderson and Michael Eyes gifted a collection of over 20 queer-themed T-shirts to Te Papa from the 1980s and 1990s. Neil Anderson recalls his time as a queer activist before the Human Rights Act of 1993, which made it illegal to discriminate against people on the basis of their sexual orientation.