Exhibitions
Events
On display
Kidsfest: Manu Making Workshop
Dane Mitchell bird of unknown affinities, Manu antiquus 2022. Brass, mild steel, plaster of Paris. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, anonymous gift, 2023
Family and Kids
Past event
Education Centre
Cost $10 per child
Use Crayola Model Magic to create your own 3D bird inspired by artist Dane Mitchell’s bird of unknown affinities, Manu antiquus, 2022 on display in the Absence exhibition.
This school holiday practical art workshop will begin with a visit to the gallery space to view the artwork, followed by time in the Education Classroom creating your own manu in model magic clay. Participants will mix clay colours and create their own manu to take away.
Please note, this workshop is unsuitable for children aged under 5 years old.
Related
Collection
Dane Mitchell bird of unknown affinities, Manu antiquus
Dane Mitchell deals in the invisible and elusive; things lost, replaced and forgotten. Here, the label for an empty museum mount identifies the missing specimen as a species of extinct bird that lived in Te Waipounamu, the South Island, approximately 33 to 23 million years ago. Its existence was established in 1946 by a British zoologist from a fossilised fragment of wishbone he found in north Otago. Researchers have speculated that it was an early albatross or a prehistoric ‘false-toothed’ seabird, but very little is known for certain. Accordingly, its scientific name is conspicuously unspecific: Manu means ‘bird’ in te reo Māori, and antiquus is Latin for ‘old’ or ‘ancient’. Mitchell’s slight, spare mount emphasises this perilous hold on history, as humans teeter at the edge of an age of mass extinctions.
(Absence, May 2023)