wellington: te papa: gallipoli, the scale of our war

i’ve had the pleasure of visiting te papa tongarewa, the national museum of new zealand, twice now.  the first time was one rainy, cold day in my first week in town, and i went solely for the gallipoli exhibition. the next time was a week later, when i went in to meet a connection via my virtual friend s, from los angeles.  i stayed on for a private tour of the museum and then enjoyed a small lunch in the cafe.  i touch on both experiences in a two part post.  read on for part one…
first off, the museum itself really well designed.  the architect, ivan mercep, and his design team did an amazing job with the layout of the building, and the exhibitions designers do an absolutely amazing job putting together solid, cohesive, and integrated work. 

on my first visit, i came specifically for the gallipoli: the scale of our war exhibit.  it’s a free exhibit, thanks to a $3.6 million contribution from the lottery grants board.  the line was rather long, and i learned from my contact there that they only allow 300 people into the exhibition at any given time.  i expressed a bit of shock at that – it’s actually a big number for the size of the space – but b showed me a picture from the lobby at 10:00am (opening time) and it’s full-on people who head straight for the line at gallipoli.

a little background on the exhibit: it’s a collaboration between the museum and the weta workshop, the exceptional design team behind the lord of the rings.  its promise to “immerse you in the sights, sounds and emotions of the war,” is spot on. 

when i first arrived, a te papa guide was talking about the exhibit and giving some background on the anzac campaign.  however, by the time i was nearer to the front of the line, no one was giving that sort of talk.  i waited a bit longer, probably twenty minutes in all, and then i went in.  from the way they were staggering the line, i had expected that it might not be as crowded as it was.  but as i came around the corner from the entry, it was immediately wall to wall people, and you couldn’t read anything because someone would either cut in front of you to read, or you’d turn to move and there were ten other people.  it was pretty ridiculous.

i made my way slowly through the exhibit, passing people and trying to read the information on the soldiers.  i admire the way they’ve set the exhibit up, actually.  you meet several people straightaway: lieutenant colonel william malone, lieutenant spencer westmacott, private jack dunn, private rikihana carkeek, second lieutenant hami grace, lieutenant colonel percival fenwick, a doctor, lottie le gallais, a nurse, and sergeant cecil malthus.  many others are quoted and named, but eight people are followed from the beginning to end because they left descriptive journals and photos.

the models of these eight new zealanders are at 2.4 times human scale, literally the scale of the war.  each hair on each model was individually placed, and the models took a combined 24,000 man hours to complete.  the detail is stunning.  sadly, with 300 people packed into the exhibition, it’s rather hard to appreciate this.

one of my favourite parts to the exhibition was the sound.  in the video below, you can hear the haka – the maori war cry – as you view the gunners.  one thing i did note on both this visit and my next one was how quiet people were in this space.  it felt like i was viewing a sacred space, just with 300 of my cloest, smelly, tourist friends.  and in a way i was.  people certainly wanted to take pictures, but the most amount of noise, besides the movement of the 300 people, was the sound of the many voiceovers, the guns, and haka in one room.  it’s worth noting that as your move through the exhibition, the sounds are very central to whichever space you happen to be in, there is very little overlapping noise.  a side note: there are hundreds of hakas in new zealand.  and while they are war cries, they are more about respect and intimidation than anger and rage.

 

there’s an incredible reconstruction of the hill at anzac cove, which shows soldiers, their trenches and the various tents that made up the camp.  stories, quotes, sounds, images and interactive elements – such as a 3d slideshow of the burial day – make up the exhibition and it’s very, very well done.  the only problem i had was the amount of people.  it made my experience seem trivial.  as i made my way through though, the people seemed to diminish.  more and more people were either well behind me or had walked quicker than i to the end.

as i reached the room that covered the hospital ship and the retreat from gallipoli, tears were forming in the corners of my eyes.  then i read about lottie le gallais, whose brother was killed at gallipoli, and tears began to fall down my face.  its especially heart wrenching because, as she says, she couldn’t leave the ship and lay flowers at his grave or talk to him where he lay dead.  as i walked into the next room, i knew it would be emotional.  there’s a larger-than-life sculpture of a kneeling soldier – sergeant cecil malthus – and information that talks about the later battle of the somme and how anzac troops stayed until the bitter end of the war.  a small shelf instructs you to take a paper poppy, write a small note, and toss it into the basin in which he kneels.

***

thanks for reading part one of my experience at te papa tongarewa.  stay tuned for part two, from my meeting with b to my private tour of the museum.  (and spoiler alert! there might be a part three!)