Inside the Dunedin Museum of Natural Mystery: A curious world of skulls, propaganda, and the paranormal

Knock on the door and he lets you in. The Dunedin Museum of Natural Mystery inside Bruce Mahalski’s central city villa is a weird and wonderful world packed with strange and curious objects collected over a lifetime. Ben Tomsett took a tour.

To many people, Bruce Mahalski’s bone art collection may seem a morbid inclination, but not so for the artist himself - they’re the shining remains of life.

“Bones to me are not relics of death ... Life built these structures. If you were walking around on Mars or Venus and found a bone, you wouldn’t say, ‘Oh that’s sad, something died here’. You’d say something lived here.”

Housed entirely inside his home, the Dunedin Museum of Natural Mystery is a treasure trove of ethnographic artefacts, fossils, artworks, and numerous other curious items, including North Korean propaganda posters, a Haast eagle skull, remnants from the Seacliff Lunatic Asylum, and a portrait of Vladimir Putin commissioned by the Russian Embassy in Wellington.

Dunedin artist, activist, and curator, Bruce Mahalski amidst his collection at the Dunedin Museum of Natural History. Photo / Ben Tomsett

The collection is largely Mahalski’s own and has been growing since he was about 8.

Mahalski grew up in Dunedin to scientist parents, with his father collecting swords and his mother shells and fossils.

“I’ve always been intrigued by the wonders of life and the unexplained ... I was immersed in a world of exploration and discovery,” he said.

One of the more unique specimens, 'The Uni-Cow', is among Bruce Mahalski's collection at the Dunedin Museum of Natural History. Photo / Ben Tomsett

His family travelled a lot, and young Mahalski thought collecting was “just what you did”.

His initial collection consisted of natural history, shells, fossils, skulls, and stuffed animals.

After completing a science degree and working in fisheries research, Mahalski became involved in climate conservation and activism and it was alongside these pursuits that he explored his artistic talents, exhibiting paintings, photography, and screen prints in various galleries.

During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Mahalski experienced a breakthrough when he used animal bones to create machine guns - as a commentary on the war.

Items in Bruce Mahalski's collection at the Dunedin Museum of Natural History. Photo / Ben Tomsett

“It was a huge breakthrough for me to see what I could do by layering bone on bone, by making these three-dimensional bone structures.”

In 2017, Mahalski lived in Wellington and, after comments from friends that his house was “like a museum” - and being inspired by Fred and Myrtle Flutey’s Paua House in Bluff - Mahalski decided to move his collection to Dunedin and have a crack at his own museum.

The move was “his last shot at the dice” and saw the end of his relationship (though he and his then-partner remain on good terms), and Mahalski “threw everything” at the project.

“It was a crazy idea, but I knew it was something I had to do,” he said.

About 10-15 per cent of the collection is donated, 5 per cent on loan, while the rest is from his own collection, he said.

Bruce Mahalski's collection at the Dunedin Museum of Natural History includes various artefacts from the Seacliff Lunatic Asylum. Photo / Ben Tomsett

Artworks by Bruce Mahalski among his collection at the Dunedin Museum of Natural History. Photo / Ben Tomsett

While Mahalski does not have a favourite from among the museum’s items, the hardest to source were a hippo skull - “it’s not easy to import something like a hippo skull” - and a piece of an Isle of Man house famed for the legend of a talking mongoose.

As an advocate for nature, Mahalski said he put in an immense amount of effort into ethically sourcing his items.

Among the collection are various photographs and artefacts of possible encounters with paranormal phenomena, which Mahalski includes within his scientific worldview.

“I approach the study of the paranormal with the same rigour as any scientific discipline,” he said.

“It’s hard to study using normal scientific methods because it’s so unpredictable. But there has been progress, and it’s a subject I could talk about for hours.”

A taxidermied deformed piglet in Bruce Mahalski's collection at the Dunedin Museum of Natural History. Photo / Ben Tomsett

Mahalski is in the process of turning the museum into a charitable trust, which he hopes will ensure its preservation and continued growth beyond his own efforts. The entire collection will be donated to the trust to manage.

“The museum is an ongoing project, never finished while I’m alive,” he said.

As the museum transitions to a charitable trust, he has hopes it will gain legitimacy allowing for funding opportunities and greater collaboration with other institutions.

“We already have a strong relationship with the Otago Museum, with numerous joint projects and exhibitions,” he said.

While it could still feel strange at times to invite strangers into his home to view the museum, he was hopeful it would continue to inspire people “to see the beauty and complexity of the world around us”.

“This collection is about putting humans in context as part of nature ... We’re not separate from it, and we’re screwing it up by thinking we can control it.”

Ben Tomsett is a Multimedia Journalist for the New Zealand Herald, based in Dunedin.