# The Charlotte Museum

The Charlotte Museum Te Whare Takatāpui-Wāhine o Aotearoa, is a museum dedicated to lesbian histories in Auckland, New Zealand, located off Karangahape Road at 1A Howe Street, Freemans Bay. It is the only museum in the world dedicated solely to lesbian culture and history.

## Background

The purpose of the Charlotte Museum Te Whare Takatapui-Wahine o Aotearoa is to collect, preserve, record and display lesbian sapphic herstory and cultural experience and the cultural heritage of Rainbow+ Communities. As well as being a museum, it is home to the Saphira Research Library & Document Archive, is a Community Art Gallery and a Community Space for Rainbow+ Communities. The museum regularly hosts a range of events such as walking tours, artist and educator talks focused on lesbian sapphic histories, and social events including speed dating, music nights, movie nights and quiz nights. They have a student internship programme organised with the University of Auckland. People can donate their own collections of lesbian sapphic and Rainbow+ cultural material to be preserved, furthering the idea of a collective effort to preserve and display lesbian sapphic and Rainbow+ cultural heritage.

## History [Herstory]

In the early 2000s, a group of Auckland lesbians set out up an Archive Group whereby they wrote down and recorded their stories and encouraged their friends to do the same. These records were then sent to the then named Lesbian and Gay Archive New Zealand (LAGANZ) Dr Miriam Saphia CNZM who was a memebr of the archive group, travelled to Wellington in 2004 for a conference and took several items with her - quilts made from lesbian t-shirts and her badge collection - with the intention of gifting them to LAGANZ. However these items were turned away by LAGANZ, who as a predominantly document archive, were not able to hold or care for objects in their collection. This resulted in tangible and visible lesbian culture at threat of being permanently lose. The Archive Group went on to change the status of lesbian culture in public history; at the time, there were almost no accessible public records on lesbian life. Subsequently in resposne to LAGANZ's position the Charlotte Museum was set up by Miriam Saphira, Nicola Jackson, Christine Hammerton and Paula Wallis in 2007 to preserve and build up lesbian sapphic histories.
The Charlotte Museum is named after Charlotte Prime (Ngāpuhi) and Charlotte Smith (Ngāpuhi), two lesbian women who were regular members of the KG Club. and activily involved in community. It was decided to use their name to reflect the museum's purpose to celebrate the lives of ordinary lesbian sapphic people. Its first physical location was in Surrey Crescent, Grey Lynn, in 2008, a year after the Charlotte Museum Trust had been established. This charitable trust emerged on 7 May 2007 in recognition of the Charlotte Museum being an organisation that benefits the public at large. In 2010, the museum relocated to Linwood Ave, Mt Albert then in 2014 it moved to Bentinck Street in New Lynn and then to its current location at Freemans Bay in June 2023.

## Recent Exhibitions

| Exhibition | Year | Location | Artist(s) Exhibited |
| SafeKeeping | 2021 | New Lynn | Veronica Slater |
| Mother Nature is a Lesbian | 2022 | New Lynn | |
| SPACES by Dar'ya Starykovaa: Photographic Exhibition | 2022 | New Lynn | Dar'ya Starykovaa |
| Pride and Protest 1972–2022 | 2022 | Te Atatū Peninsula Community Hub | |
| Seen & Heard | 2023 | Studio One Toi Tū Gallery Pop Up, 238 Karangahape Road | Fiona Clark |
| Lesbian Road Trip Art Show | 2023 | New Lynn | |
| View of OUR Street | 2023 | Freemans Bay | Melanie Church |
| FLICKS Film & TV Festival | 2024 | Freemans Bay | Pride Film Festival |
| Miriam Saphira: the last "One Night Stand" | 2024 | Freemans Bay | Dr Miriam Saphira |
| Thresholds | 2024 | Freemans Bay | The PulseArt Collective |
| Va'ine Warrior Sculpture and Carving Exhibit | 2025 | Freemans Bay | Tui Hobson |