Built by Us: Why DIY Museums Matter

Many of our council-controlled museums began life as DIY micro-museums—born of hard work, perseverance, and the passion of local volunteers. This grassroots model is not the exception but the dominant pattern in Aotearoa New Zealand. We make our own museums to tell our own stories, in our own ways.

DIY museums often proliferate in the face of marginalisation and centralisation. They are communities reclaiming their art, history, and culture as their own. They want to tell stories in ways that resonate with them. In doing so, they tell us something important about what it means to be a museum in New Zealand.

Yet as museums grow and professionalise, something is often lost. The community ethos that drove their existence can become marginalised—sometimes even intentionally—through the performance of ‘professionalism.’ Too often, this professionalism is modelled on large overseas institutions whose practices reflect the contexts of their own places, not ours.

But what if we measured professionalism differently?

• What if our definitions of a ‘museum’ came from the needs and aspirations of our own communities, not centralised or imported standards?

• What if professionalism wasn’t about having climate controls, but about how well you connect, collaborate, and sustain the stories of place?

• What if, instead of competing and undermining each other for funding, we celebrated the community energy that underpins museums across our country?

Frictions exist. Competition for funding is real. Yet DIY museums did not emerge to professionalise, centralise, or dominate. They grew from community desire to protect, share, and celebrate local stories. I have seen them achieve incredible things through their own support mechanisms—often with a broader people-base than large museums could mobilise.

Many remain unaware of how dominant the DIY museum model is in New Zealand. This lack of awareness is a missed opportunity. Large museums rarely collaborate meaningfully with their small and micro counterparts. As a result, extraordinary stories across our communities remain fragmented or invisible.

But what if large, centralised museums became conduits and catalysts—championing their DIY foundations and celebrating how they were made and remade over time through the sheer will and drive of their communities? Rather than dominating, they could be key drivers of promoting the diversity of our museum landscape, amplifying local stories and connecting them to wider audiences.

Imagine a sector that recognised the value of all its players—where the community ethos that created museums wasn’t a quaint origin story, but a core measure of professional strength. A sector stronger together, rooted in the energy, ingenuity, and care of its people.