Heritage Researcher Auckland City Council Heritage Unit

I am currently Heritage Researcher at Auckland Council. I work in the Heritage Unit researching Auckland’s built and cultural heritage. I’ve been working on events like the Suffrage 125 anniversary and the 1918 influenza centenary, as well as doing property research on buildings scheduled as heritage places by Auckland Council.

My previous roles have included Project Curator History at Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira, where I worked on gallery renewal, including an exhibition about the people and places of Tāmaki Makaurau. Before that I was Curator of Human History at Canterbury Museum, where I worked on public programmes, public enquiries, collection development, collection management and research. I curated the Whole House Reuse exhibition which looked at the amazing works that hundreds of artists, craftspeople and first-time makers created from all the bits of a house that was damaged in the 2011 Canterbury earthquakes. I have a particular interest in the social history of clothing and enjoyed exploring the textile collection at Canterbury Museum.

I have also worked as a Resources Researcher at Te Ara – Encyclopedia of New Zealand. There I researched images, sound, objects, film and maps, graphs and diagrams to illustrate and add value to the encyclopedia text. This entailed primary and secondary research, lateral thinking and taking the odd photograph. I was also part of Te Ara’s social media team and I really enjoy sharing stories from New Zealand history.

I was previously Assistant Collection in History and History Textiles at Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, working in some wonderful collections and on a variety of exhibitions, including the second Lord of the Rings exhibition. Prior to that I was employed as a contractor for the Historic Places Trust Pouhere Taonga (now Heritage New Zealand), and did the research for registering the Wellington Botanic Gardens as a historic area.