Minister extols role of museums

The audience listens as Arts, Culture and Heritage Minister Maggie Barry talks about the role of...
The audience listens as Arts, Culture and Heritage Minister Maggie Barry talks about the role of museums and art galleries. Photos by Peter McIntosh.
Ms Barry said museums and art galleries played 'an important role in our lives and our communities'.
Ms Barry said museums and art galleries played 'an important role in our lives and our communities'.

Arts, Culture and Heritage Minister Maggie Barry yesterday celebrated the positive contribution to the community of New Zealand's many museums and art galleries.

She was addressing about 240 delegates from throughout New Zealand attending the first day of the Museums Aotearoa annual conference in Dunedin yesterday.

The event is being hosted mainly by the Otago Museum, but the conference began yesterday at the Otakou Marae, where Ms Barry spoke.

Ms Barry said museums and art galleries were a ''wonderful resource'' and played ''an important role in our lives and our communities''.

And she emphasised how much cultural development had taken place since the then Governor-General Viscount Galway had opened the National Art Gallery and Museum in Wellington in 1936.

Ms Barry said New Zealand now had about 470 museums - a ''remarkable number''.

And they contributed strongly to the country and its inhabitants, and had continued to adapt to meet the evolving needs and realities of our society.

There were, in fact, more such cultural institutions in New Zealand than there were outlets from the main fast food chains, and she said museums and galleries indeed offered ''food'' for the mind.

The minister's address was followed by lunch at the marae, and then many of the delegates left the marae on a series of bus tours around Dunedin, each devoted to one of several themes, including technology, and history.

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