Editorial: Museum's opening a big event

Members of Te Papa and visiting iwi arrive at Napier museum with Maori treasures. Photo / File

Last month I had the pleasure of spending a morning touring the collections of Hawke's Bay Museum Theatre and Gallery, or MTG Hawke's Bay, to see how preparations were going for the big reopening.

I was impressed.

The redeveloped museum opens on Saturday, September 21 and it is certainly going to be a big day for Napier and the whole of Hawke's Bay.

The MTG's director Douglas Lloyd Jenkins and his team have been working long and hard to get everything ready for the big day.

Although I have not been inside the redeveloped complex, I have seen the work they have been putting into getting the collections ready for the move back. It is quite something. The painstaking care used in handling each artifact and collection was something to see and I am certain it will all pay off when the public gets to see the pieces in all their glory.

Hawke's Bay Today will be devoting some space to previewing the opening and we will have full coverage after the event as well. It is something we can be proud of. Not only will it be a great tourist attraction, but it will also be something for us as residents of the Bay to enjoy. The fact that the museum is new and modern means that it is well up to international standards for attracting and staging exhibitions featuring loaned objects from overseas. Some of the exhibitions are closer to home, like the taonga that arrived on Tuesday to form part of a remarkable exhibition called Ukainpo-o tatou whakapapa.

Having visited many museums around the world, I am sure that ours will be up there with some of the best.