06/11/2025
🐚TAU O MAI >> Journeys with Mai
FREE • Runs till 8th Feb 2026
The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
Here we are 29th Oct, cutting paper flowers, shells and breadfruit from the Pacific for making leis and headdresses for our offerings workshop to celebrate this new display lovingly created by .
Many many children visited our table, and spent time making beautiful pieces, some staying as long as 2 hours creating the most wonderful complex works of art, and even staff catching a few moments inbetween shifts to make a headdress.
Thankyou to everyone that joined us and all the brilliant staff from ,we will be back!!
'Experience the Polynesian concept of VĀ, the sacred connection between people, objects and place, in our vibrant new display celebrating the life of Mai – the first ever Polynesian visitor to Britain, immortalised in paint by leading British artist Sir Joshua Reynolds in the 1700s.
Step into our gallery transformed by arts collective SaVĀge Kʻlub and immerse yourself in an explosion of colour, pattern, art and storytelling. In conversation with Reynolds’ Portrait of Mai – on loan from the National Portrait Gallery, London and Getty, LA – members of the Kʻlub from Tahiti and Aotearoa New Zealand bring together historic Polynesian objects from the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge and contemporary artworks.'