Reused and recycled Creepy Crawlies find new home at Taupō Museum

Cats, dogs, birds, bicycles and aquatics, the Taupō Museum’s annual reused, recycled exhibition themes always invite a wide range of creative interpretations.

This year’s exhibition, with the theme Creepy Crawlies, has been highly ant-icipated and creative people have swarmed to the museum to collect entry forms.

There is a range of creepy crawly creatures bee-ing created, from all sorts of recycled materials including driftwood, vinyl records, fur balls, cutlery, and toys.

Mountview School has embraced the theme by participating in a rubbish pick-up and creepy crawly making workshop with Taupō District Council waste minimisation officer Shannon Hanson.

“Some of the rubbish we collected we deemed as good art materials and these were separated and cleaned,” she says.

“The students partnered up and created a creepy crawly of their choosing out of the salvaged materials. It was amazing how creative and industrious they were.

“Some created real insects with acute attention to detail and others created made-up creatures with special powers. It was a great lesson on repurposing materials that could be considered as ‘trash’ and turning them into something interesting.”

Other local groups inspired to get involved with the Creepy Crawlies exhibition include Kids Greening Taupō, which is providing content for interactive activities in the Niven Room, and Mahi Aroha - Project Tongariro which will hold reuse, recycle creepy crawly themed workshops during the January school holidays.

The Creepy Crawlies exhibition will be held in both the Main and Niven Room galleries at the Taupō Museum from 2 December to 6 February. Taupō Museum is open seven days from 10am to 4.30pm. Entry is free for locals and tamariki, otherwise $5 for adults, and $3 for seniors and students.

The official opening at 5.30pm on Friday 2 December is supported by The Friends of the Taupō Museum and Art Gallery and local craft meadery Beehave will be holding a special tasting for attendees.

The museum hours will be reduced to 10am to 3pm on Christmas Eve and it will be closed on Christmas Day.

The history of reused, recycled exhibitions at Taupō Museum

First there was Re-cycle, an exhibition of artworks created using bicycle parts, held to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Lake Taupō Cycle Challenge.

Then came the Dog Show, celebrating the Chinese Year of the Earth Dog, which featured dogs created from recycled, repurposed materials and an additional gallery set up especially for dogs to enjoy.

CATalogue followed with a gallery full of cat sculptures, in 2020, flying in on the tail of the nationwide Covid-19 lockdown, came Retweet where birds of recycled feathers flocked together.

Lastly, Quixotic Aquatic, the fifth of Taupō Museum’s reduce, reuse, recycle, recreate exhibitions, invited participants to create artworks and sculptures of creatures, real or imagined, with an aquatic theme.