Skip Content
Aisha_Roberts

Te Wānanga o Aotearoa welcomes Aisha Roberts, who is the new Poutiaki Toi/Collections Curator tasked with looking after Te Kōpuni Kura, our extensive arts collection.

Aisha holds a Bachelor in Media Arts with Honours from Wintec and spent several years at Waikato Museum in its exhibition and collections teams.

Her role is based at Te Puna Mātauranga, where she manages, develops and cares for the collection.

Aisha (Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Raukawa) is also working on a new TWoA Te Kōpuni Kura art collection strategy that includes a maintenance plan for the collection, which includes hundreds of paintings, whakairo, raranga, sculptures and other artworks at dozens of sites throughout the organisation.

Aisha says along with looking after the collection around the motu, she will also be caring for the collection which is currently in storage.

"One of my main jobs at the moment is to improve our current storage facilities, and work on the strategy for the collection,” she says.

She also wants to work on building the TWaA collection database, including more information and research about the artworks.

“The actual documentation on each artwork is something I’d like to do more research on to build that mātauranga of the collection. At the moment we can view works as they hang through the site, but the  information behind the works is yet to be made accessible.”

“It’s beautiful to look at the art on our walls but the whole whakapapa behind it and its contribution to the New Zealand arts scene is the kind of information that I think would be valuable to our kaimahi and tauira, to our toi programmes and other programmes as well,” she says.

“It’s about realigning the focus of the collection to our core business, educating our whanau. It’s really part of our strategy, getting the information online and making it accessible.”

 Back to news & events

Published On: 8 Nov, 2016

Article By:



Other Articles

  • 27 March 2025

    A whakairo journey shaped by art and community

    Murray ‘Muzz’ Green (Te Kanawa, Ngāti Maniapoto, Whatakaraka, Ngāti Mahuta, Ngāti Te Kiriwai, Ngāti Tuwharetoa, Ngāti Rangitihi, Ngāti Ngutū, Whānau-a-Apanui and Ngāti Porou) left school at 15 when he realised conventional education wasn’t for him.

  • 20 March 2025

    Nāwai i tauira, kua kaiako

    Ahakoa he rerekē noa atu te ao i tipu ake ai a Rob Bromley i tāna e mōhio nei i tēnei rā, nō te ohinga ake, ka rongo ia i tētahi hao ki te reo Māori.

  • 10 March 2025

    Te Wānanga o Aotearoa recognised as leader in Māori HR

    Te Wānanga o Aotearoa was awarded the prestigious Mana Tangata Award at the 2025 NZ HR Excellence Awards on Thursday 27 February in Tāmaki Makaurau.

  • 06 March 2025

    A kaiako who built more than a course

    When Peter Waaka arrived in Queenstown many years ago, with a career spanning government work, hotel management, and Māori development teaching wasn’t on his radar. But life has a way of leading us in unexpected directions, and for Peter, that was helping tauira turn their business ideas into reality.