New Zealand Maritime Museum hosts Indigenous-led Pacific exhibition

The New Zealand Maritime Museum has launched ‘Our Ocean of Islands’, a landmark Indigenous-led exhibition featuring 24 Moana Oceania island nations. Developed over three years in collaboration with Lagi-Maama Academy and Consultancy, the exhibition showcases the histories, cultural practices, and connections of Tangata Whenua and the seventeen Pacific nations with diaspora communities in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Contributors from each nation selected the specific stories, languages, and artifacts to be shared. Highlights of the collection include 3,000-year-old pottery from Vanuatu, works regarding the significance of sharks from Kiribati, and dolphin teeth currency from the Solomon Islands. The exhibition also features ancestral navigation practices.

Individual contributors include senior lecturer and Niuean knowledge holder Ioane Aleke Fa‘avae, who contributed a katoua—a traditional cleaving weapon crafted from kwila wood and cowrie shells—and Tongan artist Tavakefai‘ana Sēmisi Fetokai Kulīha‘apai Moahehengiovava‘ulahi Potauaine. The exhibition is scheduled to run for 18 months and will include public workshops and panel discussions.