The recent opening of a major new exhibition, "Te Ao Maori: Maori Treasures from the Otago Museum", in China reflected a further advance in the museum's relationship with the Shanghai Museum, organisers said.
In a report tabled at a recent Otago Museum Trust Board meeting, museum chief executive Shimrath Paul said the exhibition had also advanced and consolidated Dunedin-Shanghai sister city ties.
The exhibition, of 337 Maori artefacts, had been "beautifully displayed" at the Shanghai Museum in a manner appropriate to the artefacts and to the Shanghai audience.
The show was significant in many ways: including as the first exhibition of Maori artefacts in a Chinese museum, and it had taken "pride of place" in the Shanghai Museum's large-scale number one gallery.
The exhibition has attracted high-profile coverage from the Beijing Review, a weekly English language news magazine.
A lengthy article said the show had attracted about 55,000 visitors a week over the first two weeks after it opened on July 21.
The Otago Museum show was "well on track for its expected attendance of more than half a million before its closing date in early November", the article said.
