Lady (Putiputi) Penelope Simcock was a collector of ephemera and items related to New Zealand Tourism, and in particular she was interested in representations of Maori for European audiences. Very little reference to Lady Putiputi (as she was known) remains. A small notebook discovered in 1987 contained a detailed inventory of her collections. Included in the listings were large collections of photographs, footage and artefacts from New Zealand tourism history, including rare plans for the development of a model Maori Pa to be constructed on thermal terraces. Also among her collections were a number of rare artefacts, Maori and European, which were made specifically for the tourist market and featured westernised representations of Maori imagery and subject matter. Unfortunately following the uncovering of the notebook it was also dicovered that Lady Putiputi’s descendant who had inherited the bulk of the collections had donated much of it to opportunity shops unaware of its intrinsic value as a snapshot of New Zealand cultural history. In later years the notebook was also lost. What has grown in its place is a mythology surrounding the content of the collection which may well have been one of the most valuable collections of its kind in the world.
Created as part of a residency hosted by the Rotorua Artist Residency Programme in 2010, MOTH re-interpreted aspects of Lady Putiputi's collections. A number of individual works were made for the residency including a model of Terrace Pa and a billboard advertising poster. The works were first exhibited in their entirety at Waiariki Institute of Technology and then later as part of the exhibition Where Are We at Lopdell House Gallery, Auckland curated by Kate Wells.
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| Terrace Pa, 2010, Courtesy of MOTH |
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| Soda Whare, 2010, Courtesy of MOTH |
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| Trad. Paint Whare, 2010, Courtesy of MOTH |
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| Sulphur Whare, 2010, Courtesy of MOTH |
