Te Papa is 'a terrible warning to the world'

By Jenny Forsyth

Theodore Dalrymple, from the New Statesman, who visited Te Papa a year ago, described it as "an amusement arcade masquerading as a museum." This is an edited version of his story.

"Even if Te Papa really does mean Our Place, there is something unpleasant about the name. It buttonholes you and precludes criticism: if you are not entirely at home in Our Place, it means you are not one of us.

Built at what, for so small a nation, was vast expense, the contents are nevertheless few.

The first impression is of a giant amusement arcade. There are virtual-reality machines on which you can windsurf or water-ski. Coloured lights flash, there is a lot of electronic whizzing and banging.

A young man dressed like a ball-boy at Wimbledon approaches. He is one of the Te Papa hosts who appear on posters throughout the city: "Helpful. On to it. Stimulating Te Papa host."

He asks whether you would like to be photographed digitally in 3-D being pursued in a jeep by moas, riding a tyrannosaurus, riding a Harley Davidson, sitting in a Christmas stocking, with a condor landing on an outstretched arm, or in a space capsule bearing the New Zealand flag.

The offer refused, the on-to-it Te Papa host is not downcast. He offers one of the rides instead. There are two, Blastback and Future Rush. I choose Blastback, which compresses 65 million years of geological and evolutionary history into eight minutes.

Before buying the ticket I am enjoined to read a warning: "Blastback and Future Rush are exciting attractions that involve motion stimulation and laser effects. People are advised not to experience these attractions if they suffer from the following conditions: epilepsy, dizziness, neck disorders, back disorders, heart disorders. These attractions may also be unsuitable for women who are pregnant."

It seems the rides at Te Papa successfully combine two modern tendencies, the craving for excitement and anxiety about health. Te Papa wants to be exciting and innovative, but not the first museum in the world to be sued for causing a miscarriage.

For the eight minutes of Blastback, after walking through a plastic primeval forest to a cinema, we are jolted hither and thither while the screen plunges us to the depths of the ocean, propels us into the crater of a volcano, rushes us over foaming white water, speeds us through the undergrowth of a forest and attaches us to the wings of a high-soaring bird in a fast-moving sequence without any apparent reason or narrative purpose.

"That's it, folks," announced the on-to-it Te Papa host when the 65 million years compressed into eight minutes were over.

I progress to the exhibits. There is an astonishing cacophony as a variety of recordings are played when people press the interactive buttons, the barking of dogs, the baa-ing of sheep, music and so forth. One is invited to "Hold a soundshell to your ear, press the button and hear some freaky, weird stuff about nearby creations."

There is no obvious principle by which the exhibits are arranged. Distinctions are dissolved between categories of endeavour. A landscape painting is placed next to an exhibit of little plastic figurines of the All Black rugby team, which are given out at petrol stations when you spend more than $20 on fuel and are called the Small Blacks.

Despite the expected genuflections in the direction of multiculturalism, the greatest insult in Te Papa (other than to the intelligence of the visitors) is to the Maori, for the finest examples of their magnificent wood-carving art, which even to an unschooled eye such as mine were of the deepest significance to those who made them, are placed in the midst of the household detritus of modern New Zealand. Nothing could be more demeaning to the men who devoted their lifetimes to mastering the art of carving.

Not that the visitors to Te Papa are allowed to contemplate the Maori expression of man's artistic and religious impulse in silence: far from it.

As soon as they enter one of the great carved wooden buildings now housed in the museum, coloured lights come on by remote control and a recording is activated: "Welcome, visitors, to this magnificent storehouse called Te Takinga. We see this unusually large and elaborate pataka as evidence of our Mana in Te Papa Tongarawa, the museum of New Zealand."

The recording, by a man with a vaguely Maori accent, conveys no information about Maori life whatever. Who he represents, who "we" are in his unctuous little speech, is not explained.

The coloured lights and the recording prevent the exercise of the imagination, while at the same time they serve no intellectual function. They are not so much entertainment as distraction from the possibility of thought; in Te Papa, the mind is never left to its own devices, but undergoes constant sensory stimulation. Te Papa is the MTV of museums.

Te Papa is only a straw in the cultural wind. Its atmosphere is similar to the modern hospital's - another temple to the short attention span, another example of modern man's inability to be alone with his thoughts.

On the third floor, in a bare concrete gallery, ill-lit and unadvertised, there are two rows of paintings. There are no signs to say what they are or who they are by.

For a small and young nation, not entirely sure of its cultural identity, New Zealand has a considerable tradition of painting: but the visitors to this gallery are made to feel that, by visiting it, they are doing something almost illicit. There is a dirty-postcard feel to the gallery, as if it were the inside of a dirty old man's raincoat.

Then there is the library. "Here," says a notice, "you'll find magnificent books and soft seats - the ideal place to browse and stay." The library is also the ideal place, says the notice, "to take a short break from the hurly-burly of Te Papa."

The hurly-burly of a museum? The very idea is the antithesis of learning, let alone of scholarship. One leaves Te Papa knowing no more than when one entered it. If one has the mentality of a child of limited intelligence and curiosity, one might have been amused or kept out of trouble for a while.

Te Papa is the institutional exemplar of the lowest common denominator turned into official cultural policy, and stands as a terrible warning to the rest of the world."