Help us rehouse our contemporary jewellery

Here at The Dowse Art Museum we have one of New Zealand's best collections of contemporary jewellery.

We are kaitiaki of an extraordinary variety of objects made from many unexpected materials - from Chux cloth crowns to black rubber wreathes. It's a well-used collection, in high demand for exhibitions here and around Aotearoa. We love our collection and are asking for your donations so that we can ensure that these objects can be admired, studied and displayed for decades to come.

Our current storage is an adequate C+, but these works deserve A+ treatment. The cabinets we are using date back to the origins of the collections itself in the 1970's and they have done their dash. It's time to modernize and improve the conditions for our special contemporary jewellery collection. That's why we're asking for your help. We're a small and busy team here at The Dowse, and as in many small arts institutions, a special project like this is above and beyond our usual means. To take great care of these precious objects we need your support.

We will use your donations to build a new home for our contemporary jewellery. This will help protect our collection from deterioration, and keep it safe well into the future. It will make the collection safer when artists and researchers use it in between the times the pieces are put on display.

Your donations will be used to pay for skilled museum collection specialists to come and create the custom-fitted nests and supports that will keep the pieces safe and sound for years to come.

The generous Dowse Foundation has offered to match your donations. That means if you give us $10 we get $20! And when we reach our $5,000 goal we will receive the matching $5,000 from The Dowse Foundation and you can feel doubly good about the support you give us!

Please, give what you can. Your donations will help us safeguard the work of Aotearoa's contemporary jewellers for generations to come.