Product Code Database
Mina Louise McKenzie (; 2 February 1930 – 11 March 1997) was a New Zealand museum director based in Palmerston North. Known to many as "Aunty Mina", she was the curator at the Manawatū Museum (later Te Manawa) between June 1974 and 1978. From 1978 until her retirement in 1994, she served as the director of Manawatū Museum. Affiliating to Ngāti Hauiti, Ngāti Raukawa, Te Āti Haunui a Pāpārangi, and Rangitāne, she was the first Māori director of a New Zealand museum.
In 1952, she married Barry James Woods, and the couple had two children before divorcing. In 1965, she married Bruce Alan McKenzie, and they had four children together.
McKenzie was a member of the Te Maori committee. She was instrumental in having the North American tour extended to the Field Museum in Chicago. The Te Maori exhibition is credited with generating new ways of exhibiting and understanding Māori taonga within museum contexts. McKenzie was the only woman on the Te Maori committee and the museum she was director of was not asked to contribute any collection items to the exhibition. This enabled her to work in a mediator role, as both a Māori and a museum professional. She facilitated negotiations between Iwi and museums to gain the necessary permissions to allow taonga to travel to America.
McKenzie was a mentor to many young people who went on to become prominent museum and heritage professionals and scholars in New Zealand. Throughout the 1980s, she utilised funding from government work schemes to employ students and Māori and train them in museum practice. McKenzie was instrumental in the establishment of a museum studies programme at Massey University, where she was an honorary associate professor from 1990 until her death in 1997.
After McKenzie's death in 1997, the Mina McKenzie Scholarship and annual Mina McKenzie Lecture were established. In 1998, she was posthumously awarded the Massey University Medal for contributions to the university's museum studies programme and strengthening of the museum sector in New Zealand. In 2018, the Mina McKenzie Award was introduced at the New Zealand Museum Awards, recognising individual achievements in the museum sector.
|
|
