Rocking the boat

By MICHELE HEWITSON

When Dr Seddon Bennington was appointed the head of New Zealand's national museum Te Papa - Our Place in January, he said this: controversy is positive.

"I think it's wonderful. It proves you have become a part of people's lives to be debated."

Be careful what you wish for. The head of Te Papa has got himself a nice little controversy in the form of a black boat, a so-called glass mausoleum and a very public debate.

But put it to the very suave Bennington that NZL32 given to Te Papa by Sir Peter Blake has turned into an albatross, as in: "Nobody wants the damn boat, do they?" and he does not so much as blink an eye.

"Well," he counters, "I don't know about that. It's really what people want and don't want that we've got to define here. Now, I'd be surprised if no one wants the story of Sir Peter Blake told in a way that inspires young people."

As befits a museum man, he would like to take a tour around the history of the boat by way of an answer.

"If we just go back: this is a boat that won a cup for New Zealand back in 1995 and at the time every New Zealander was riding on that boat with the team. It's a great object in terms of not only that historic moment, but really representing this combination of outstanding sailing that's part of New Zealand's sailing history."

It may well be a "great object" in symbolic terms but as a museum object, a bloody great boat is a rather unwieldy exhibit. "It is," says Bennington, "a challenging object. But we shouldn't shy from challenges like that."

Still, you might imagine that Te Papa - and Bennington - had been feeling celebratory. They had unfolded a $10 million gleaming glass architectural vision, to sit on the edge of Auckland's viaduct, to house a boat with a history.

Te Papa's trademark thumbprint would be firmly placed on Auckland. The exhibit would be firm evidence of the partnership of New Zealand's national museums with the nation - the thumbprint of Bennington's reign.

A lot depends on this. It is fair to say that many Aucklanders do not quite feel that Our Place is our place. Te Papa may be our national museum; we feel it belongs to Wellington.

There is, too, the possibility that Aucklanders were going to be reluctant to take to their hearts what could look like an empire-building exercise.

Bennington says making Aucklanders feel Te Papa is their place too is "not going to happen overnight. It's not going to happen by us simply arriving with Te Papa's thumbprint somewhere. It's going to come from us building relationships, and the most appropriate place for us to start is with kindred museums."

The kindred museum in this instance is the Maritime Museum. On paper, and in the architect's drawings, it looked a fine romance.

Until a bloke called Brian Rudman, in his New Zealand Herald column, termed the building "a glass coffin," and proposed instead Kaikoura Island as a more fitting monument.

Shatter, smash. The glass splinters are still flying. The supporters still scattering.

The mayor of Auckland, initially enthusiastic, said: "This is a concept driven from Wellington by the Government through the national museum, Te Papa ... It is Te Papa's idea."

Sir Peter's brother, Tony Blake, withdrew his support for the waterfront memorial. Disparaging references to the "glass coffin" had tarnished the proposal, he said.

Now - and goodness, Bennington must be good at the behind-the-scenes campaigning - Sir Peter's widow, Lady Pippa Blake, and other family members have declared their support for the memorial. As has the mayor.

Bennington is not noticeably injured by those flying shards. It is difficult to believe, though, that he has not indulged in a shriek or two in the privacy of his sixth-floor office.

He is not admitting to any such undignified behaviour. "Not at all. This is certainly reminding us that to succeed with anything in our community it has to be through a very positive media."

That is a smilingly delivered little dig number one.

Here's number two: "It appears the public response has been focused around a glass box with no discussion, for example, of the larger objective which is the exhibition."

And the Kaikoura Island idea is not an exhibition. Te Papa is in the business of exhibitions. An island, he says, "won't provide access to the story of Peter Blake and that's where we feel our interest should be."

Although he is relentlessly positive about the setback (not that he would use that particular word), you can just hear in his voice a tiny echo of something like disappointment that the idea of the glass structure has not caught the public imagination: "We hoped we had a design idea that the public would be supportive of. We were visualising it in its place. Seeing the boat through interactive activity inside. Thinking about how it would look at night illuminated, and during the day the clouds reflected off the glass."

Oh, well, says Bennington, the eternal optimist, "this is certainly reminding us that to succeed with anything in a community it has to have community enthusiasm and ownership - and that's our task."

His daily task is to walk through a public part of his museum. But he has never been on Te Papa's rides. We drag him down to Future Rush - a laser-lit journey into 2053 - to have his picture taken. What an amenable fellow he is. Unruffleable too.

It might, he says, be a good idea to get Rudman and give him a spin. That is little dig number three. And this time Te Papa's head honcho is really smiling.