Gallipoli Wins New Zealand Museum Award

Te Papa’s Gallipoli: the scale of our war has been recognised at the New Zealand Museum Awards. Last night, the ground-breaking exhibition took home Best Exhibition: Metropolitan Social History in a joint win alongside Auckland Museum’s Taku Tāmaki.

Developed by the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, in collaboration with Wētā Workshop, Gallipoli: The scale of our war is a fascinating and sobering journey through the eight-month World War One Gallipoli campaign, in which 2,779 New Zealanders lost their lives. Wētā Workshop spent 24,000 hours of labour on the project, creating eight hyper-realistic, 2.4 size human figures.

The New Zealand Museum Awards, now in their ninth year, recognise annual excellence in the museum field. This year, they coincided with the first Museums Australasia Conference.

At Wellington’s Te Papa, the reception to Gallipoli, which recently marked its first year anniversary, has been remarkable. More than 750,000 visitors have experienced the exhibition to date, breaking Te Papa’s previous attendance record of 389,999 for Air New Zealand 75 Years. Those who have yet to head along still have plenty of time to do so: the exhibition is open until 2019.

For a full list of NZ Museum Award finalists, click here.