#Otago Museum

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Image Credit & Copyright: Ian Griffin (Otago Museum)

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Andromeda in Southern Skies: Looking north from southern New Zealand, the Andromeda Galaxy never gets more than about five degrees above the horizon. As spring comes to the southern hemisphere, in late September Andromeda is highest in the sky around midnight though. In a single 30 second exposure this telephoto image tracked the stars to capture the closest large spiral galaxy from Mount John Observatory as it climbed just over the rugged peaks of the south island's Southern Alps. In the foreground, stars are reflected in the still waters of Lake Alexandrina. Also known as M31, the Andromeda Galaxy is one of the brightest objects in the Messier catalog, usually visible to the unaided eye as a small, faint, fuzzy patch. But this clear, dark sky and long exposure reveal the galaxy's greater extent in planet Earth's night, spanning nearly 6 full moons.

[Scott Horton]

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"Forget about enlightenment. Sit down wherever you are and listen to the wind that is singing in your veins. Feel the love, the longing, and the fear in your bones. Open your heart to who you are, right now, not who you would like to be. Not the saint you’re striving to become. But the being right here before you, inside you, around you. All of you is holy. You’re already more and less than whatever you can know. Breathe out, look in, let go."

~ John Welwood [Ian Sanders]

[jontycrane]

Dunedin

One of New Zealand’s original five major cities (along with Auckland, Christchurch, Nelson and Wellington), Dunedin has claim to be the best of them to visit as a tourist. It has it all, a beautiful setting, plenty of heritage, wonderful gardens, native wildlife, great museums, and good places to eat, all in a compact city of ~105,000 people. To start just outside of the city though with Otago…

[wonders-of-the-cosmos]

Andromeda in Southern Skies (Mount John Observatory, New Zealand) Image Credit: Ian Griffin (Otago Museum)

[apod]

2023 December 23

A December Summer Night Image Credit & Copyright: Ian Griffin (Otago Museum)

Explanation: Colours of a serene evening sky are captured in this 8 minute exposure, made near this December's solstice from New Zealand, southern hemisphere, planet Earth. Looking south, star trails form the short concentric arcs around the rotating planet's south celestial pole positioned just off the top of the frame. At top and left of center are trails of the Southern Cross stars and a dark smudge from the Milky Way's Coalsack Nebula. Alpha and Beta Centauri make the brighter yellow and blue tinted trails, reflected below in the waters of Hoopers Inlet in the Pacific coast of the South Island's Otago Peninsula. On that short December summer night, aurora australis also gave luminous, green and reddish hues to the sky above the hills. An upper atmospheric glow distinct from the aurora excited by collisions with energetic particles, pale greenish bands of airglow caused by a cascade of chemical reactions excited by sunlight can be traced in diagonal bands near the top left.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap231223.html

[endlingmusings]

Various moa bones, some still retaining partial skin and feathers, from the collection of the Otago Museum in Dunedin, New Zealand (1880). The photos themselves were taken by the Burton Brothers, one of New Zealand's most important 19th Century photographic studios. [ x ]

[onichophora]

Jewelled Gecko (Naultinus gemmeus), endemic to the southern half of the South Island. This particular individual was kept in a display at the Otago Museum, this female, I'm guessing as she has the "jewels" that males don't usually have, came up to the glass when I wiggled my finger at her.

[talonabraxas]

APOD: Andromeda in Southern Skies (2022 Oct 21) Image Credit & Copyright: Ian Griffin (Otago Museum) Explanation: Looking north from southern New Zealand, the Andromeda Galaxy never gets more than about five degrees above the horizon. As spring comes to the southern hemisphere, in late September Andromeda is highest in the sky around midnight though. In a single 30 second exposure this telephoto image tracked the stars to capture the closest large spiral galaxy from Mount John Observatory as it climbed just over the rugged peaks of the south island's Southern Alps. In the foreground, stars are reflected in the still waters of Lake Alexandrina. Also known as M31, the Andromeda Galaxy is one of the brightest objects in the Messier catalog, usually visible to the unaided eye as a small, faint, fuzzy patch. But this clear, dark sky and long exposure reveal the galaxy's greater extent in planet Earth's night, spanning nearly 6 full moons.

[loveydovey-leviathan]

Below is a list of events happening in New Zealand in support of Palestine. All events can be found on the official PSNA website (Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa).

North Island Opononi – Gathering for Palestine Sunday 28 April 1:30 pm Outside the Four Square, Opononi Kerikeri, Bay of Islands - Rally Rally on the First Saturday of the month from now on Next Rally Saturday May 4 Whangarei – Rally Saturday 27 April 11:00 am Whangārei Town Basin in front of Hundertwasser Building  Auckland – TVNZ Picket – TVNZ’s Jack Tame Platforming Genocide Friday 26 April 12:00 mid-day TVNZ - 100 Victoria Street West Auckland  Auckland – Banners around Tamaki Makaurau Saturday 27 April (Delayed from last week due to high winds) 10:00 am Gather at the Market Road Overbridge. Plans to go to (dependant on numbers):

Pedestrian motorway overbridge at Mauranui Ave – Dilworth Road

Omahu Road overbridge

Text Steve on 021 256 511 For further details Auckland – Rally Sunday 28 April 2:00 pm Te Komititanga – Britomart Square Tauranga – Rally Every second Sunday. Next Rally Saturday May 4 10:30 am Watch this space Tauranga – Flag waving Sunday 28 April 11:00 am Coronation Park, Mount Maunganui Hamilton - Rally Saturday 27 April 1:00 pm Flynn Park, Hamilton Rotorua – Flags for Todd McClay Thursday 25 April 4:00 pm National MP Todd McClays Office - 1301 Amohau St, Rotorua Napier - Rally Saturday 27 April 11:30 am Marine Parade Soundshell Roundabout Hastings - Rally Sunday 28 April 2:00 pm Hastings Town Clock – Hastings CBD Palmerston North - Rally Sunday 28 April 2:00 pm The Square, Palmerston North New Plymouth – Flags on the Bridge Friday 26 April 4:30 pm Paynters Ave Bridge, New Plymouth New Plymouth – Rally Saturday 27 April 1:00 pm The Landing, 1 Ariki Street, New Plymouth Whanganui - Rally Saturday 27 April 11:00 am Riverside Market, Whanganui Whanganui – (Kite) Flying Prayers for Palestine Sunday 28 April 1:00 – 2:00 pm Castlecliff Beach Carterton Every Tuesday 12:00 midday Memorial Square. Martinborough – Gathering for Palestine Every Wednesday 11:00 am The square at the top of Kitchener St, Martinborough Featherston Every Saturday 11:00 am The Squircle (opposite the op shop). Wellington No Rally this weekend South Island Nelson – Rally Check out the Te Tau Ihu Palestine Solidarity Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/TeTIPalestine/ Takaka – Information and Networking Gathering Saturday 27 April 10:30 am Village Green, Takaka Blenheim Saturday 27 April 11:00 am Blenheim Railway Station Christchurch – Rally Saturday 27 April 1:00 pm Bridge of Remembrance, Cashel Street Dunedin - Rally Saturday 27 April 2:00 pm Otago Museum Reserve to the Octagon, Dunedin Queenstown - Rally NOTE – Next Sunday May 5 1:00 pm Earnslaw Park, Queenstown Invercargill - Rally Friday 26 April 5:30 pm Wachner place Invercargill

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There will also be a PSNA National Meeting 18/19 May 2024 in Auckland.

[drhoz]

#1969 - Catonephele numilia - Blue-frosted Banner

photos by @purrdence

AKA blue-frosted Catone, Grecian shoemaker and stoplight Catone. I don’t have any info on the origin of the scientific name, let alone the “Grecian Shoemaker” common name.

Finding one of these in the wild in Aoteoroa would be rather odd, since it’s a Nymphalid from wet forests in Central and South America, and the climate on New Zealand’s South Island isn’t exactly conducive to the health of tropical butterflies. It’s from the butterfly house at the Dunedin Museum in Otago. 

The males are black with six orange dots on the upper surface of the wings, and blue spots along the rear edge of the hind wings - rather battered in the top photo. Females are black with a light yellow band across the centre of the forewings. Adults feed on rotten fruit, and the caterpillars feed on Alchornea species from the family Euphorbiaceae.

Males perch on vegetation and wait for receptive females to pass. After mating, females spend the warmest parts of the day cruising waterways and paths looking for host plants to lay their eggs, and raise enough generations each year that the adults can be found at any time. No doubt that’s one reason the butterfly enclosure chose them. 

[jeanhm]

Lawrence and Omarau

On our way from Kaka Point to Omarau we stopped off at Lawrence which was a little gem. The town was actually one of the places which was at the forefront of the Otago Goldrush and has a number of well preserved buildings and an interesting little museum. This was actually a much more interesting place than Arrowtown yet its barely known about. The museum needs to put this place on the map a bit better.

We took one of the old Gold Mining routes over the hills, Gabriels Gully, passing by the most amazing lake, Lake Mahinerangi which was totally stunning with virtually no traffic around. Then it was on to Omarau for the night and the hope of seeing Blue penguins, but sadly it wasn't happening. We did have a really nice walk around the town with its lit up Victorian buildings and spent the evening drinking Belgium beer before retiring to our hotel with its All Blacks memorabilia and skiing gear on the wall of our room, including ice axes!

[jasmine1304]

Fundies HW: Software/Pūmanawa

Simple Image Adjustment

For This homework brief, we have to take at least four photos from the internet or use our own, either black and white or unfocused pictures and put them through photoshop, using the tools we had been taught in class Monday afternoon. This little task will help us to understand the different colour contrast and how to use the tools correctly when editing pictures with different hues, tones and values.

Zeus - Dad's dog

Taking away the overexposure to the light and making it darker, I wanted to bring out his fur colour to make it more vibrant and less white.

Curves

Brightness/Contrast

Kevin - Sister's Dog

I took out the white light and made the picture more vibrant with colour. Kevin's face is a little darker in the second picture I edited, but it looks a little more natural colour-wise.

Curves

Brightness/Contrast

Hue/Saturation

Colour Balance

Maori Art - Otago Museum

Taking out the exposure, changing the contrast darker to make the colours stand out more and adding a little colour balance to draw out the colours a little more

Curves

Colour Balance

Hue/Saturation

Bluff

I lowered the contrast, making it darker to bring out the blue sky, adding a little hue to bring the blue out in the sky and making it the principal focus along with the water, since in the first picture, it is more white and the second picture its more blue.

Brightness/Contrast

Hue/Saturation

Colour Balance

[spatialdesignjessicazhang]

Bibliography (Reference style)

Baudot, B. (2004). Meaning of Life and Purpose of Society: Essential Dimensions of Morality – Report. Triglav Circle. https://www.triglavcircleonline.org/meaning-of-life-and-purpose-of-society-essential-dimensions-of-morality/

Broken Pencil. (2023, September 19). Catalina Cheng on Ceramics and Preservation of Queer Art History . https://brokenpencil.com/folio-2/folio-catalina-cheng-on-ceramics-and-preservation-of-queer-art-history/

Camus, A., & O’Brien, J. (2018). The myth of Sisyphus (Second Vintage international edition). New York: Vintage International : Vintage Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

Freschi, F., Venis, J., Nazier, F., Russell, K. J., Hopewell, H., Carter, L., Miller, S. C., Krishnan, T., McCaw, C., Galloway, M., Wilson, J. K. T., & Campbell, D. (Eds.). (2021). The politics of design: Privilege and prejudice in aotearoa new zealand, australia and south africa. Otago Polytechnic Press.

Jessica, Z. (2023). Combing. Best Awards. https://bestawards.co.nz/spatial/student-academic-spatial/aut-art-design/combing/

Robèrt, K.-H. (2008). The natural step story: Seeding a quiet revolution. Gabriola Island, BC: New Catalyst Books.

Sartre, J.-P. (2003). Being and nothingness (H. E. Barnes, Trans.; 2nd ed.). Routledge.

Sun, Y., & Peng, Y. (2016). Can’t help myself. The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation. https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/34812

The Cooperative Human. (2018). Nature Human Behaviour, 2(7), 427–428. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-018-0389-1

Tuhiwai Smith, P. L. (2012). Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. Zed Books. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/aut/detail.action?docID=1426837

Weir, P. (1989). Dead Poets Society. Buena Vista Pictures Distribution.

Wunderlich, F. M. (2013). Place-Temporality and Urban Place-Rhythms in Urban Analysis and Design: An Aesthetic Akin to Music. Journal of Urban Design, 18(3), 383–408. https://doi.org/10.1080/13574809.2013.772882

[tashamarx04]

Forth NZ Photographer: Bridget Reweti

Artist and curator Bridget Reweti hails from Ngti Ranginui and Ngi Te Rangi in Tauranga Moana, Aotearoa. Her lens-based practise investigates Mori current realities and the complexity of indigenous landscape viewpoints. Bridget is the Frances Hodgkins Fellow at Otago University for 2020–21. She has participated in various residencies both domestically and abroad, and her work is included in both private and public collections.

Bridget is a member of the Mata Aho Collective, a group of four Mori women artists that work together to create large-scale textile pieces that reflect on the complexities of Mori existence. Bridget has a personal stake in creating an environment where Mori feel secure and courageous while engaging in the arts, from government to operations to audience. She is co-editor of the ATE publication of Mori Art, an annual peer-reviewed publication of Mori art, and has organised both solo and group exhibitions across Aotearoa.

Bridget has a Master's degree in Mori Visual Arts with first-class honours from Massey University's Toioho ki piti and a PgDip in Museum and Heritage Studies from Victoria University of Wellington.

I chose this image because, in my opinion, any photos that have been changed to black and white appear far superior. I also enjoy how it imparts a soft touch and a serene sense, but in some strange way it looks incredibly chilly but peaceful. and I appreciate that it has a slight vintage vibe.

Bridget has a tendency to use a lot of depth of field in her photographs, and this is one of those. I like how the background is blurred but not completely, making the piece of art in the middle stand out as a result.

This is the final picture I chose of Bridget because I feel like the background blur makes the foreground leaves stand out more and it also has a vintage feel to it. However, in the future, I'd like to use depth of field and add a black and white filter or a warmer color over my original pictures.

WEBSITE: LINK

[apod]

2023 September 23

Afternoon Analemma Image Credit & Copyright: Ian Griffin (Otago Museum)

Explanation: An analemma is that figure-8 curve you get when you mark the position of the Sun at the same time each day for one year. To make this one, a 4x5 pinhole camera was set up looking north in southern New Zealand skies. The shutter was briefly opened each clear day in the afternoon at 4pm local time exposing the same photosensitized glass plate for the year spanning September 23, 2022 to September 19, 2023. On two days, the winter and summer solstices, the shutter was opened again 15 minutes after the main exposure and remained open until sunset to create the sun trails at the bottom and top of the curve. The equinox dates correspond to positions in the middle of the curve, not the crossover point. Of course, the curve itself is inverted compared to an analemma traced from the northern hemisphere. And while fall begins today at the Autumnal Equinox for the northern hemisphere, it's the Spring Equinox in the south.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230923.html

[endlingmusings]

The skeleton of an Eastern moa, part of the collection of the Otago Museum in Dunedin, New Zealand (1880). Eastern moa stood approximately 1.5 metres (4.9 ft) tall, with females being 15-25% larger than males, and inhabited the lowlands of the South Island. As with almost all moa species, the Eastern moa was extinct by the year 1500. [ x ]

[grad604katywolf]

Pohewa Pahewa

Pohewa Pāhewa celebrates Māori design practice and interrogates Western design practice through a Māori lens.

Desna Whaanga-Schollum

She completed a Master of Science Communication at Otago University. Her thesis is titled Taipōrutu, Taonga Tuku Iho. Articulating a Mātauranga Māori 'Sense of Place'. This work explores the philosophical and community values of mātauranga Māori, and considers how the science communication in this area might be improved within the context of resource management development processes.

Co-Chair of Māori and Indigenous design network Ngā Aho. 

Activly involved in Maori identity

Tyrone Ohia

Is the Creative Director and Founder of Extended Whānau in Tāmaki Makaurau.

He created the distinctive visual identity for the Toi Tū Toi Ora: Contemporary Māori Art exhibition.

I found this video that I found on Tyrone to be really interesting in the way that he shares his thought and design process to get to the final product.

Graham Tipene

Grahams art can be found across concrete panels in the Waterview Tunnel and Albany’s Tirohanga Whānui walking and cycling bridge, to the Central City Library and Te Ao Mārama (South Atrium) at Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira.

He studied Maori design following his interest in creating more Maori representation in NZ

He’s currently working on the City Rail Link’s

Johnson Witehira

He's been on a journey into Māori art and design since completing my Masters in Graphic Design (2007) and then my Doctorate in Māori visual arts (2013).

at the end of 2017 I joined forces with Miriame Barbarich and John Moore to form Indigenous Design and Innovation Aotearoa

realized we needed more Māori designers so we created Āpōpō, Wellington’s first and only Indigenous Creativetech hub.

During one of my his forays into landscape design and architecture he met and worked alongside Clynt White. Their first major project, the Opanuku Link bridge and playground

Zoe Black

She has been with the gallery for two years working across curatorial programming, community development and public programmes. During this time she has made an extraordinary contribution to the organisation, leading Māori programming, alongside extensive work with Moana and migrant communities within a kaupapa of co-leadership. This work now forms a key focus of our exhibition programme.

She has been working in galleries for the past eight years. Her curatorial practice has focussed on community development and advocating for critically under-represented craft and object art forms. She is currently Norwegian Crafts' Curator in Residence, working on projects that create a dialogue between Indigenous making practices in Aotearoa and Sápmi. Prior to Objectspace she was Curatorial Manager of Malcolm Smith Gallery in east Auckland.