A small summer exhibition dreamed up by two Dunedin mums over a coffee has carried Tūhura Otago Museum onto one of the biggest stages in the global museum sector, with the project named among the five best entries in the world at the Museums and Heritage Awards in London.
The Gallery Gang’s Big Adventure was shortlisted as a finalist in the International Exhibition of the Year category, an honour that placed the Dunedin institution alongside some of the largest and best resourced museums on earth. Tūhura was the only finalist from the southern hemisphere in the category. The awards are held in such regard within the sector that they are widely described as the Oscars of the museum world.
The other finalists read like a roll call of heavyweight institutions. They included the Grand Egyptian Museum and its Tutankhamun gallery, Lithuania’s Lost Shtetl Museum, and a collaboration between China’s Suzhou Museum and the British Museum that brought the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal before a Chinese audience. The category was won on the night by Austria’s Universalmuseum Joanneum for its exhibition at Schloss Eggenberg, with the winners announced at a ceremony at the Hilton on Park Lane on 13 May. Even without the trophy, reaching the final five was a remarkable result for a project of Tūhura’s size and budget.
What makes the achievement stand out is how the exhibition came about in the first place. Shanaya Cunningham, 35, the museum’s design and exhibitions manager, and Annah Taggart, 33, a senior designer, hit on the idea over coffee while working out how to keep their own children busy through the long summer holidays.
“We were looking for something specifically for families to do over summer, because as mums … we’re always looking for something to do and there’s not a lot in Dunedin,” Cunningham told the Otago Daily Times. “So we landed on this idea. Creativity from any place is so important.” After a short conversation with management, the museum agreed to host the show.
The Gallery Gang’s Big Adventure opened on 29 November 2025 and ran through the summer. It featured more than 30 craft activities, a cast of interactive characters drawn from the museum’s own collections, and reward cards and stickers that nudged children to keep exploring. Cunningham said the museum’s holdings were a natural starting point. “The museum’s collection can inspire so many things,” she said.
Both designers framed the show as more than a way to fill rainy holiday afternoons. They wanted to make the case that the arts deserve a central place in the way children learn. Taggart said the subjects had shaped her own path. “Arts and culture and history were my main passions at school,” she told the paper. “I didn’t fit into the science and the maths, so it was nice to be able to have something that you are passionate about at school.”
She worries those subjects are slipping down the order of priorities. “I don’t think it’s valued as much now as it could be,” she said, arguing that creative work teaches skills that matter more, not less, as technology advances. It helps children think critically, solve problems and explore ideas, she said, all of which are vital in a world increasingly influenced by artificial intelligence.
For the pair, the recognition in London landed as a surprise. “This exhibition grew out of our belief that arts, history and culture are now more important than ever,” Cunningham said. Speaking to RNZ after the shortlist was confirmed, she said the scale of the company Tūhura was keeping had not quite sunk in. “To be the only finalist in the southern hemisphere in that category, to stand alongside some of the world’s biggest museums is incredibly special for us here in Ōtepoti,” she said.
The result is the latest in a strong run for the Dunedin museum, which has built a national reputation for science engagement, its tropical butterfly house and a busy programme of touring and homegrown exhibitions. For a regional institution to out-punch its weight against national museums with far deeper pockets is the sort of story Dunedin tends to take quiet pride in.
It is also a reminder that good ideas do not always need a big budget or a big city behind them. Two staff members, both parents, spotted a gap in what their own town offered over summer and turned it into something families queued for and that judges on the other side of the world singled out. The Gallery Gang has closed for now, but its short adventure has already travelled a very long way.
Have you taken the children along to The Gallery Gang’s Big Adventure, or do you think the arts get a fair shake in our schools and museums? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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