Teaming up with Te Papa

The theme of ‘teamwork’ is at the heart of the Maritime Museum’s stunning new exhibition, Blue Water Black Magic – A Tribute to Sir Peter Blake, due for opening in December this year. It’s therefore fitting that a strong partnership between the Maritime Museum and Te Papa has been responsible for bringing the project to this point.

New Zealand’s 1995 America’s Cup winning boat, NZL32 ‘Black Magic’, was gifted to the nation under the care of Te Papa by the Team New Zealand 2000 Trust. Following the tragic 2001 death of Sir Peter Blake, Te Papa wanted to ensure the public could have access to this historic piece of New Zealand triumph. After much thought and discussion between Te Papa and the Maritime Museum along with the Blake family and New Zealand Government, Prime Minister Helen Clark announced in May 2008 that NZL32 would be the centrepiece of a new exhibition, Blue Water Black Magic – A Tribute to Sir Peter Blake.

The decision recognised Auckland as the focal point of New Zealand’s America’s Cup activity, and the Maritime Museum as New Zealand’s national celebration of our maritime heritage and achievement.

From then began the massive project of developing an exhibition that recognises the colossal contribution that Sir Peter made to yachting and to New Zealand. The vision was for an experience that matched Sir Peter’s passion for life; one where positivity, self-awareness and determination are at the core of team achievement and leadership. An aggressive timeframe was set for the completion of the project, but as Sir Peter himself said many times, “if it’s not hard it’s not worth doing”.

Staff from the Maritime Museum and Te Papa, partnering with leading exhibition creators, Workshop e, set about creating an engaging exhibition rich in objects, stories, interactivity, audio visual content and colour. Te Papa’s proven expertise in developing this kind of interactive, powerful experience has been incredibly beneficial to the project and will ensure the lasting tribute to a New Zealand hero is suitably epic and expressive.

The result is set to be New Zealand’s largest exhibition construction in recent years, and the most significant undertaking in the history of the Maritime Museum since its opening in 1993. Te Papa’s contribution to Blue Water Black Magic – A Tribute to Sir Peter Blake has been critically important and all of us here at the Maritime Museum are incredibly grateful for their support.