Lynette Townsend

After her MA thesis, Lynette continued to work at Te Papa Tongarewa as history curator and kept a focus on New Zealand childhood as an area ongoing research.

I gained my MA in 2009 for a thesis entitled: Seen but not heard? Collecting the history of New Zealand childhood. Since completion I’ve continued to work at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa as a history curator and have maintained a focus on New Zealand childhood as an area of interest and ongoing research. Alongside object centered studies and publications, I have concentrated on the curation of Te Papa’s collection of child related objects. A new project entitled Collecting Childhood began in 2012, and aims to address one of the findings of my thesis—that the contemporary voice and perspective of children is often absent from history.

Collecting Childhood is a long-term collecting project that aims to capture the everyday life, interests and perspectives of seven New Zealand children as they grow up. It is being done in conjunction with the University of Auckland’s Growing Up in New Zealand longitudinal study tracking the development of 7000 New Zealand children.

Like most history curators my work is extremely wide-ranging. I have curated exhibitions exploring New Zealand history, fashion, the Italian community in New Zealand, Aztecs, and Air New Zealand.

My focus for the future is to explore opportunities to better represent New Zealand’s increasingly diverse population, and work together with a variety of ethnic, and other communities to ensure their stories are told in the museum. One new research project established in consultation with Wellington’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex communities, focuses on a set of collaged panels from the Evergreen Coffee House—a LGBTI hangout in the mid to late 20thcentury. The aim is to uncover the hidden histories and stories associated with the people and places represented in the panels. The project is already proving to be a great deal of fun, and incredibly poignant at the same time.