Stuart Park (museum director)

Graham Stuart Park (born 21 August 1947) is a New Zealand anthropologist and museum director. He was the anthropologist at Otago Museum from 1965 to 1979, and the director of Auckland War Memorial Museum from 1979 to 1993. Park was among the team of creative directors who developed Te Papa, the national museum of New Zealand in Wellington.

Early life
Park was born in Croydon, Surrey, England on 21 August 1947, the son of Douglas Robert Park and Doreen Ledlie Stuart. His father, originally from Dunedin, served in the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy, and the Royal New Zealand Naval Volunteer Reserve during World War II.

Park attended North Sydney Boys High School and at age 15 arrived in New Zealand, where he attended Otago Boys' High School. After high school, Park studied at the University of Otago, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1968 and a Master of Arts with honours in 1972.

Career
Park was employed as the anthropologist at Otago Museum in 1968, where he stayed for 11 years. During this time, he worked on excavating archaeological sites at Tiwai Point, before the construction of the Tiwai Point Aluminium Smelter. He left the Otago Museum in 1979 after 12 years to become the director of the Auckland War Memorial Museum, becoming one of the youngest museum directors in New Zealand, at 32.

While at the Auckland War Memorial Museum, Park took a keen interest in developing the museum volunteers programme, which began in December 1983. In addition to this, Park had interests in ethnology, applied arts and museum studies, and instigated the first Auckland Museum newsletters. After an incident when TVNZ reused old footage taken at the museum of culturally sensitive items against his wishes, Park banned TVNZ from filming at the museum. In the early 1990s, Park worked to redevelop the first floor of the museum, including the Volcanoes & Giants exhibition and Weird & Wonderful, an exhibition space for tactile learning about the natural world.

He left Auckland War Memorial Museum in December 1993, becoming a concept leader for Te Papa in Wellington from 1993 until 1998. Park, as a member of the concept leader team, was tasked with conceiving ideas for opening exhibits at Te Papa for its opening in 1998, as well as developing the museum's collections. After the museum opened, Park became the director of museum resources from 1998 to 1999. In October 1999, Park moved to Kerikeri, where he became the Northland area manager for the New Zealand Historic Places Trust. During this period, Park worked on creating a central database for information on Northland war memorials.

Park retired on 31 August 2012, after which he dedicated much of his time to developing a personal collection of glasswork, which was exhibited at the New Zealand Glassworks facility in Whanganui in 2022. In 2016, Park wrote the content for Path to Nationhood, an app created by Heritage New Zealand that offers audio tours of different historic areas around Northland.

Honours
In 2018, Park became a Fellow of Auckland War Memorial Museum.