CARRIED AWAY: BAGS UNPACKED EXHIBITION

The bag reveals as much as it conceals 

Carried Away: Bags Unpacked showcases over 150 individual bags from Auckland Museum’s collection, many on display for the first time.

Every bag has a history, a story to tell – from haute couture fashion to cultural traditions. Bags can convey social standing, practical needs or be a statement of art.

The curators of the exhibition really wanted it to be an object focused collection - a single object and what that could tell us about our community, our society and our place in New Zealand. 

A lot of the bags in the collection are very eurocentric which you can anticipate because of all the European settlers coming in and bringing their heritage, their culture and what they were used to.  

They have however, worked with the Maori & Pasifika curators in the Museum to highlight indigenous practices & techniques to help broaden that view of what a bag is and what kind of techniques are used which speaks to Maori & Pasifika place in Aotearoa.

The show is split up into the form of what the base material of the bag is made out of - Plant, Animal, Synthetic and Mineral.  

One of the interesting things you may notice when checking out the exhibition is that there's a Pacific bag in each material base group which shows that not all Pasifika bags are made out of plant based material as some people may expect.

The show is interactive with digital screens next to the displays where you can swipe the screens to bring up the bag you want more info on.  It also has extra images to show you detail and parts of the bag that you can't see from outside the display glass.  

There are video projections throughout the exhibition telling stories of the bags and 3 mannequins - 1 is Pacific featuring a dress and bag made out of bilum.

Another interactive part of the show is where you can take a photo of the contents of your bag and it's recorded into another big screen which gets collected with everyone else's.

The exhibition is on at the Auckland Musuem in the Auaha Atea Nui Special Exhibition Hall until the 1st of December and explores the stories associated with their creation and the people who used them including 13 Pasifika bags.

Thank you to Grace Lai at the Auckland Musuem.