Elizabeth Mildon, Louisa Hormann, Maryke Benadé: Wāhine Toa
Channel: NDF - National Digital Forum
Date: 2020-01-06

Women in Defence - collaborating and curating online for Suffrage 125

Wednesday November 20, 2019 2:30pm - 2:55pm
Rangimarie 1 - Breakout Room Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa

Wāhine Toa: Women in Defence is the first collaborative, online exhibition of its kind produced by the New Zealand Defence Force's three service museums. The exhibition was curated for the Suffrage 125 national event programme and explores the journeys of women serving in the New Zealand Defence Force since gender integration in 1977. The online exhibition is currently available on the Air Force Museum of New Zealand website and features video interviews with New Zealand servicewomen and a variety of digitised archive material relating to recruitment in the Navy, Army and Air Force in New Zealand.

Due to resource constraints, the decision was made to use a digital platform in the form of an online exhibition on the Air Force Museum's website. The project team believe that this approach ultimately helped align the project more closely to the official Suffrage 125 commemoration aims of diversity and accessibility, as well as creating the perfect opportunity for collaboration between museums.

This paper reviews how the NZDF's three service museums collaborated together, including how they overcame the challenges of developing an online exhibition within the constrained Defence IT environment and physical distance from each other. The project team will share what they have learned from the exhibition development process, web analytics, the potential and possibilities of physical display, and securing the exhibition's online future.

To view the exhibition, please go to https://www.airforcemuseum.co.nz/whats-on/what-to-see/exhibitions/wahine-toa-women-in-defence/

Elizabeth Mildon
Curator Heraldry, National Army Museum Te Mata Toa

Louisa Hormann
Archives Technician, Air Force Museum of New Zealand

Maryke Benadé
Communications Assistant, Air Force Museum of New Zealand