From 3pm today, Otago Museum has closed to the public in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, following the Government announcement at 1.30pm that the country has moved from alert level 2 to level 3, and will progress to level 4 in 48 hours. Our responsibility for public wellbeing and our staff’s health is of the utmost importance and we believe we must respond to the current situation pragmatically and cautiously.

This includes all public programmes and events, exhibitions, education and outreach programmes, and visitor activities as well as access to our galleries, science centre and planetarium.

We can’t say at this time how long the Museum will be closed but will continue to follow Government and Dunedin City Council advice. We will notify the public of our reopening as soon as we can.

The Otago Wildlife Photography Competition remains open for entries.

The Museum will continue to operate behind the scenes with staff working remotely on all our non-public facing activities, such as caring for collections and taoka, research, digital resources, development of exhibitions and public programmes, planning, and conservation. Key personnel have been delegated to make regular scheduled visits to maintain and ensure animal, collection, and facility welfare.

We will be developing online resources such as blogs, virtual tours, science experiments, craft activities, and where possible, live streams of talks and other events. These won’t replace the experience of being physically in the Museum, surrounded by our collections and knowledgeable team, but we hope they will help to fill some time for those in self-isolation, those with children home from school for extended periods, or those working from home.

Our social media will remain active, and we will provide updates there as well as links to the resources as they become available. Information will also be updated at www.otagomuseum.nz/covi1d19 as necessary.

We have postponed the Fashion FWD >> Disruption Through Design exhibition until March 2021. More information about this and other scheduled exhibitions will become available in due course.

Public health and safety is a community responsibility and we take our part seriously.

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