Highlights

To celebrate the festive season, Puke Ariki has curated a collection of items from our Heritage Collection. This assortment of items represents summertime fun throughout Taranaki’s history. As you scroll through these delightful images, let the festive spirit of the holidays fill your heart with joy. After all, 'tis the season for spreading cheer and making memories! From all of us at Puke Ariki museum, we wish you a merry Christmas and a bright summertime season!

To honour the life of Queen Elizabeth II, Puke Ariki has curated a collection of items from our Heritage Collection. This collection represents two of The Queen’s notable visits to our region during her reign: once in 1954 over the 8 and 9 January she visited Taranaki as part of her Royal Tour of New Zealand following her coronation; and again in 1977 for her Silver Jubilee tour visiting eleven centres throughout Aotearoa New Zealand.

Pat Greenfield was born in Nottingham, England on 8 March 1946. Pat is a self-taught Taranaki based photographer and self-described archivist recording "history as it happens now".

She undertook a photography course by correspondence through the New York Institute of Photography, which taught her the technicalities of photographic production.

This body of work is a 20 year photographic and scientific journey of discovery into the effects of climate change along the Taranaki coastline.

There is a particular emphasis on the Three Sisters Beach and the neighbouring Four Brothers Beach. We are shown the growing and often dramatic impact storms and earthquakes have had on our vulnerable coastline. Tongapōrutu has one of the fastest eroding coastlines in the world, were the erosion is measurable within human timeframes.

Take a look at paintings by botanical artist Fanny Bertha Good (1860-1950) featured in Puke Ariki’s exhibition State of Nature: Picturing the Silent Forest. Fanny spent her time exploring the bush near her home in south Taranaki, painting our native trees and fungi. Search the museum collection to see more, and please leave us a comment if you can help identify any of the species she painted! Visit State of Nature from 7 April – 5 November 2023 to discover Fanny’s story.

Marine molluscs: Deep ocean to rocky shore
Molluscs are a diverse group of soft-bodied invertebrate animals. They range from deep ocean-dwelling squids, to shellfish that live in the sand on surf beaches. Six classes of animals make up the phylum Mollusca, including cephalopods, gastropods and bivalves, which are represented here.
Squids belong to the cephalopod class of molluscs. Some squids have an internal shell which supports them like a skeleton. Many of the shells which wash up on beaches are gastropod molluscs, which form ornate, single shells in a dazzling array of spiral forms. Bivalve molluscs have two shells around them joined by a hinge.