Vault/2010

Modelled on, but very different from, the highly prestigious Museum of Jurassic Technology, in Los Angeles, California, the Museum of True History - known affectionately as 'MOTH' by collection enthusiasts and museum professionals alike - is a humble, but by no means diminutive example, of five centuries of collecting traditions. It is not the first institution of its kind to inhabit the sometimes obtuse eclecticism of the private collection. The Museum of True History however does negotiate the relatively unbroken ground of the antipodean lifestyle in all of its normalised, contradictory and highly inoffensive splendour.

The development of pressed glass technology revolutionised domestic interiors in the mid nineteenth century, as glassware, for the first time, could be produced at a cost that made it available to many. Up until that time glassware had been the preserve of the rich. Glass collector Margaret Oldham was an early collector of contemporary New Zealand studio glassware but in the early 1990s switched her focus to Victorian and Edwardian pressed glass tableware and has assembled a collection of over 500 pieces. Pressed glass was, until recently, a field largely unperturbed by collectors and has only just become considered as interesting as cut and engraved glass. Beyond her long standing affinity with glass Margaret Oldham she says she likes pressed glass for the reason that "it was for everyday usage "and because "these are products of stupendous craftsmanship on the part of the mould makers".

John Lyall has had a lifelong obsession with Meccaco. Working on a rug design project for Dilana Rugs several years ago, Lyall decided to work with his beloved Meccano, creating "seven different Meccano rugs as a recapitulation of one of the most famous products of Liverpool."

The collection of the Auckland Studio Potters is a working resource for the organisation and it members which largely features works made by visiting local and international tutors. These are works produced at short workshops where works have been progressed to stage where they can be bisque fired. In this selection are works made by some of the Fletcher Challenge Ceramics Awards judges who conducted workshops when they were in Auckland. The installation features works by Jeff Mincham, Ron Nagle, Akio Takamori, Takeshi Yasuda and Torbjorn Kvasbo.