Documentation Team Leader / Kaiārahi Tira Pūranga ā-Tuhi, Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision, Wellington

Mishelle completed the Graduate Diploma in Museum and Heritage Studies, and soon after joined a specialist team at Ngā Taonga Sound and Vision, as an Archivist.

Changing my vocation to explore other areas in the cultural sector has been rewarding, offering exciting challenges, varied work, and satisfying results. I have been fortunate to complete a Graduate Diploma in Museum & Heritage Studies. Not long after, I was able to join the hustle and bustle of a working archive as the Documentation Archivist at Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision. The New Zealand Archive of Film, Television, and Sound is an amalgamation of New Zealand’s film, television and radio collections. The work is varied, from identifying at-risk collection materials to selecting research or, display items on behalf of internal/external clients, working with talented writers/artists to make their dreams come true - you would be lucky to find me at my desk. The collections date from 1896 to the present. We protect yet, offer to present to researchers access to our vast collection of stills, posters, scripts, clippings, printed programmes, publicity material, production records and files, personal records, storyboards, props and costumes, animation cels, taped interviews, glass advertising slides, ephemera, and equipment.

The specialist staff who are passionate, eclectic and supportive, and at times providing many amusing scenarios are hardworking decision makers to stabilise, maintain and to serve the collections of this national audiovisual archive. The opportunities here are great - the possibilities of in-depth research, working with different formats from textiles to acetate animation cels; creative presentations, workshops, curatorial experience - endless. e.g., One of the highlights I have had the privilege to practice as a Curator and Artist Liaison for the annual Siapo Cinema: Oceania Film Festival.

I have found that the courses’ practical placements and my background in the arts sector and libraries have been a useful mix in helping to wade through the ‘collections.’ In the future, I would like to see more enthusiastic and passionate people of Pacific descent work within the Culture and Heritage sector; and I am open to working with other collections here and abroad. Forever grateful to Conal McCarthy and Annie Mercer for supporting me throughout my time studying Museum & Heritage Studies at Victoria University of Wellington - Fa'afetai tele lava.