Thai museum visitor

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33064, 3 November 1972, Page 5

Thai museum visitor

Experience gained ine New Zealand museums and art galleries would be helpful to her in her position as education: officer at Bangkok j National Museum, Miss Sivalee Poopheachara said in Christchurch. yesterday.

Miss Poopheachara arrived in New Zealand from Thailand in April on an Aspac (Asian and Pacific Council) cultural scholarship, and will spend a year in this country before returning home. The first six months have been spent in the North Island, at the Auckland War Memorial Museum, the Auckland Art Gallery and the Hawke’s Bay Museum. She has spent a month at the Otago Museum and will stay at the Canterbury Museum for about three weeks.

"Mostly, I am looking at administration and how the

education side of New Zea- | land museums work,” she said yesterday. I The Bangkok National i Museum is a Government i controlled institution administered by the Thai Departement of Fine Arts. Miss ! Poopheachara began working I for the department after graduating from the University of Fine Arts in Bangkok i with a BA degree in archae- ' ology. Pacific interest For three years she worked | in the excavations and re- | storation section of the I museum, before taking up I her position as education ! officer when the office was 'created two years ago. She is the first member of . the staff to be sent overseas j for study, and it has been i very rewarding, she says: | “I am particularly imI pressed by the display techniques I have seen in' New Zealand museums and by the collections of Polynesian and Melanesian art,” she said yesterday. The Bangkok National Museum displays mainly archaeological objects found in Thailand and neighbouring countries, according to Miss Poopheachara. These are mainly traditional and ceremonial objects. Back to Auckland However, it is hoped to establish another museum to concentrate on ethnology. While she has been in New Zealand, Miss Poopheachara has visited smaller museums in the North Island and hopes to do the

same while she is in the South Island. After she leaves Canterbury Museum, she will return to Auckland, where she will work until she returns to Thailand.