Media Release – 17 April 2014

Auckland Museum’s lasting legacy - thanks to Lottery Grants Board

Auckland War Memorial Museum will take its WWI centenary commemorations ‘to the people’ after receiving significant funding from the Lottery Grants Board.

The $3.8million funding will enable the Museum to bring its major WWI Centenary project to life by redeveloping two commemorative gallery spaces and undertaking a community outreach programme.

The outreach programme, comprising displays, digital elements and curatorial expertise, will be out in communities throughout the WWI centenary period encouraging families to share their recollections, records and experiences of war. These memories will be captured in the Museum’s Online Cenotaph database and form part of a lasting legacy for future generations.

The outreach programme will also add value to the Museum’s partners’ existing WWI programmes, including those of the RSA, Public Libraries, National War Memorials, schools, local interest groups and other museums.

Auckland Museum Director Roy Clare says, “Future Museum, our 20 year strategic plan, expresses our goal to reach ‘beyond our walls’. We are thrilled that the Lottery Grants Board has affirmed our vision to engage with people and communities. Through this exciting and generous grant we will be able to extend the Museum’s capacity. The investment will enable more people to share information and spread knowledge; to reflect on the sacrifices of those who have gone before us; and to commemorate the substantial international role played by our province and by our nation.”

Alongside the community outreach programme, a new enquiry centre will be developed onsite to provide a home base for commemoration. It will sit alongside an enhanced learning space for WWI discovery, the primary aim being to facilitate remembrance and reflection of the New Zealand WWI experience through inquiry.

Both projects form part of a creative, inspirational and sustained WWI centenary programme titled He toa taumata rau: Courage has many resting places, which runs to 2019. However, the development, now made possible by the Lottery funding, will be future-orientated in terms of content and learning engagement, and will outlive the commemorative period.

Since opening in 1929 the Museum has honoured the original intention of commemoration and memorial to those who served in the First World War and successive conflicts.

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