Museum of Wellington City and Sea touring exhibition, Innocents Abroad: Touring the Pacific through a Colonial Lens, is open in Wellington during the International Festival of the Arts - from 23 February 2006..

It opened as the three month season of Siu Ki Moana, subtitled Reaching Across the Pacific, went into its last month at the National Library in Wellington.

Peter Ireland, National Library curator and Siu Ki Moana researcher Lois Webseter, have encouraged those interested in Reaching Across the Pacific to also look at Innocents Abroad.

Education resources
Shelley Seay, a Teacher in the education Service in the Wellington waterfront location of Museum of Wellington City and Sea, has viewed the Exhibition at the National Library. She has prepared education resources to complement Innocents Abroad.

Some of those involved in Reaching Across the Pacific, with its Tonga New Zealand focus from 1870 to 1950, have also been involved in the preparation of Innocents Abroad. It portrays Alfred Burton's photographic record through the Pacific.

Discussions are being held about developing Siu Ki Moana and allied educational material to be made available in and for Tonga, and to building understanding of Pacific citizens in New Zealand.

One option is for Siu Ki Moana to be part of the celebrations surrounding the Tongan King's birthday later this year, and another is for it to help Reaching Across the Pacific in support of the work of diplomatic missions.

Media, educators and the wider public are being encouraged to find Tongan and wider interest in the potential of the exhibitions Innocents Abroad, Reaching Across the Pacific and their allied educational materials.

Cooperation with Te Papa
It is the brainchild of the exhibition curator Brett Mason, who came up with the idea while cataloguing the Burton Brothers’ original glass photographic plates, held at Te Papa.

The Burton Brothers ran one of the biggest photographic companies in nineteenth-century New Zealand, and their photographs are recognized as an unparalleled record of New Zealand’s development “and for capturing many aspects of Maori and Polynesian culture at the time”.

By Anthony Haas, Asia Pacific Economic News, Press Gallery, Parliament Buildings

Updated February 20, 2006

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