Te Papa has today welcomed a gift of colourful outfits, accessories and other taonga that belonged to flamboyant New Zealand personality, Carmen Rupe. 
 
The national museum has been holding a powhiri this morning to acknowledge the collection, which Carmen herself carefully selected before her death in 2011. 
 

Te Papa has today welcomed a gift of colourful outfits, accessories and other taonga that belonged to flamboyant New Zealand personality, Carmen Rupe. 
 
The national museum has been holding a powhiri this morning to acknowledge the collection, which Carmen herself carefully selected before her death in 2011. 
 
Long-time friends of Carmen, Robin Waerea and Jurgen Hoffman, say it was one of her wishes that these treasures be donated to Te Papa.

“Carmen would often say to us, one of the many things she loved about the museum was that it is free for all to enjoy. Now that’s Carmen all over, she wanted all walks of life to have equality,” says Robin.
 
The entrepreneur was well-known for raising the profile of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) communities.

Te Papa has held treasures offered by Carmen for years. Jurgen says “She wanted to add to her existing collection at the museum, so we have brought these items to Te Papa as we promised her we would.” 

The gift includes objects marking key moments in Carmen’s life, including the policeman's helmet worn by the officer who arrested her in the 1970s, and an intricately decorated headpiece.
 
These were just some of the items carried onto Te Papa’s marae by Carmen’s friends and family during the powhiri, along with tiki, jewellery, boas, lei and wigs.
 
Kirstie Ross, Te Papa’s curator of modern New Zealand history, has overseen past acquisitions and donations from Carmen, as well as this recent acquisition.

She says Carmen’s collection reflects a time of significant change in New Zealand’s history.

“These objects are from the collection of an iconic and iconoclastic Wellingtonian and New Zealander. Carmen was a key personality from a period when official attitudes towards homosexuality, prostitution, and even alcohol licensing were not as liberal as they are today.” she says.

During the past decade, Te Papa has been acquiring material to ensure the LBGT communities and the issues affecting them are represented in the national collections.

Background

Carmen Rupe (1938-2011).

Carmen was a well-known transgender entrepreneur, who owned several businesses in Wellington; notably a coffee lounge-brothel, a nightclub and a curio shop.

Born in Taumaranui as Trevor Rupe, Carmen moved to Auckland in the 1950s. She then crossed the Tasman for Sydney, where she made a living dancing and stripping at nightclubs in Kings Cross. It was here that she acquired many of the business ideas she later used in Wellington. These ideas were ahead of their time for New Zealand, largely due to Carmen's uninhibited and liberal views on sex and sexual orientation.

In 1977, she ran a high profile campaign for Mayor of Wellington, supported by outspoken entrepreneur Bob Jones and the group, 'Citizens for Carmen'.

Carmen again left New Zealand in the late 1970s to live and work in Sydney, but regularly returned home and was a respected matriarch of the LGBT community.

The Gift

This group of objects is significant because of their association with Carmen Rupe, and the fact she selected them for Te Papa shortly before she died. Many of the outfits and accessories are recognisable from her public appearances in New Zealand and Australia.

They include a silver sequined dress, diamond jewellery and a voodoo doll.
 
The acquisition also demonstrates Te Papa’s ongoing commitment to social diversity in New Zealand and is an addition to past gifts from Carmen.

In 2006, Carmen sold the national museum a collection of sixteen items (eleven photographs, three paintings, one drawing and one election advertisement) depicting key moments and places in her life. This acquisition was overseen by a history curator at Te Papa, Kirstie Ross, who visited Carmen in Sydney to review the objects. This resulted in an ongoing relationship that was sustained by phone calls, letters and Christmas cards. In 2010, Carmen also donated a painting, depicting her as a snake dancer, and a photograph of her Wellington business, Carmen’s Curios.

The collection will now be registered and catalogued on Te Papa’s collection database, and conservators will assess the items to ensure they are stable.

A date for the display of Carmen’s most recent gift has not yet been determined.

Te Papa

Over the past decade, Te Papa has been collecting items to ensure the LGBT communities and issues affecting them are represented in the museum’s national collections. Acquisitions include quilts made under auspices of the New Zealand AIDS Memorial Quilt Project, which arrived at Te Papa earlier this year.

Media Release: Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa