Peter Peryer has been taking photos for over 30 years What he can do with the camera is phenomenal, and the way that he talks and writes about photography is even better. Peter is the second artist to be invited to live in a Plischke-designed home in Alexandra; the previous recipient of the Henderson residency was writer Vincent O'Sullivan. This house is totally, totally fabulous (in a Frank Lloyd Wright sort of way). The view is to die for: you look over the Clutha River and onto the far- ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Episode 60: Women, camellia's and the voteFerrymead Heritage Park is an
open-air museum that tells stories about Victorian and Edwardian
Christchurch. On Labour Weekend the Museum Detective was invited to the launch of Miss Camelia White – an advocate of the women’s suffrage movement. The Museum Detective talked with staff who were role-playing, and the MP for Christchurch East Lianne Dalziel, who was until recently Minister for Women’s Affairs. Lianne wasn’t role-playing.So let’s set the scene a little. We have some sensible women ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
58 Money and Science: The New Zealand Institute & Hector Francis Lucian Reid recently completed his PhD from the University of Cambridge, UK, in the History and Philosophy of Science. He talks about how fiscal restraint shaped the type of science the scientists involved in the New Zealand Institute (now the Royal Society) did. Predictably we moved onto a discussion about one certain gentleman who did science in the mid to late 19th century New Zealand - Sir James Hector.Francis admits that he could have written a rich and juicy biography about H ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
Episode 59: We love those little museumsRowan Carrol, Director of the North Otago Museum, takes the Museum Detective on a guided tour of the displays. But this is not your ordinary guided tour. Throughout the visit Rowan critiques the museum practice that has shaped each of the exhibits, and she shares her vision for this small town museum. Rowan is seeking iconic stories about the region, which include a collection of tools from the Waitaha (a local Maori tribe some hundreds of years ago), Temuka pottery, and mementos from a fam ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
56 The sinking of New Zealand: conversations between Hector and DarwinProfessor George Gibbs, entomologist and author of Ghosts of Gondwanda, wanted to figure out ‘what sort of science James Hector did.’ While George was impressed with the wide range of topics that Hector covered in his 35 years as editor of the Transactions the thing that really caught his eye was the correspondence between James Hector and Charles Darwin. Then as our conversation unfolded we started toying with the idea that colonial scientists were perhaps a little freer to explore new ide ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
4:2 Palaeontology Part IIWe're back at the Palaeontology Collection at the University of Auckland. Collection Manager, Neville Hudson, whisks us away into the world of shellfish from Gondwanaland, DNA analysis of moa bones and ancient grasshoppers. We've have the excitement of dinosaur dung, fossilised footprints and researchers from overseas interested in conducting research on the Jurassic relatives of our very own tuatara.
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3:09 Lice, those six-legged beautiesIn this episode we talk about lice. Our guest is Ricardo Palma, an entomologist from Te Papa. He tells us how these six-legged beauties have kept him busy for over 40 years. Ricardo has worked in Argentina, Chile, New Zealand and the Galapagos Islands, the latter being a once in a life time opportunity.
Ricardo's area is taxonomy, he explains the various tricks of the trade from how to prepare a louse to peer under the microscope and he shares some anecdotes about how lice have speciated b ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
2:12 Flesh-eating bug. The Zoology Collection at the University of CanterburyToday we're talking bones, lots of bones - this is a the place where elephants lurk in cupboards and crocodiles line the corridors, there is also a rumour about an academic with a hippopotamus in his office (that's one heavy paperweight mulls the Museum Detective).Joanne Burke is the technician and caretaker of a vast Zoology Collection in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Canterbury. This collection houses vertebrates (mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish and birds) and ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
2:9 EducationThis week the Museum Detective talks about education with Cynthia McCaughan of the South Canterbury Museum. Cynthiaâ??s position is funded by the Ministry of Education under the Learning Experiences Outside the Classroom (LEOTC) scheme.Cynthia offers over 30 hands-on minds-on programmes. Students explore the world of social history, such as Edwardian-style education and the impact of Timaru's 1868 fire. Natural history, technology and archaeology are also on the books. Cynthia tells us that ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
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