ABSTRACT While the inclusive focus of the First World War centenary has restored many marginalised stories to local and global narratives, most New Zealanders remain unaware of their nation’s official First World War art collection. The artworks produced for this collection were meant to act as both documentation of the New Zealand forces and as sites of commemoration for the nation’s sacrifice. They were intended for display inside a national war museum that was planned but never built; instead, the collection was placed into storage within the Dominion Museum and later the National Art Gallery. It has rarely been exhibited. By the 1960s, the collection’s cultural significance remained so unacknowledged that several works were almost destroyed. After being transferred to Archives New Zealand in 1981, the entire collection was digitised and made available online—granting the works an unprecedented level of accessibility. This article interrogates some of the reasons the collection failed to find its audience and achieve any significant level of cultural relevance across its hundred-year history. In particular, it examines how each shift in the collection’s evolution—from artwork to artefact to archive—has transformed its functional meaning and poses questions about its future within war remembrance practices.

中文翻译：

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艺术品、人工制品还是档案？新西兰官方第一次世界大战艺术收藏的演变

摘要 虽然第一次世界大战一百周年的包容性焦点已经将许多边缘化的故事恢复到本地和全球叙事中，但大多数新西兰人仍然不知道他们国家的官方第一次世界大战艺术收藏品。为该系列制作的艺术品旨在作为新西兰军队的文件和国家牺牲的纪念场所。它们打算在一个计划但从未建成的国家战争博物馆内展出；取而代之的是，这些藏品被存放在 Dominion 博物馆和后来的国家美术馆中。它很少被展出。到 1960 年代，该系列的文化意义仍未得到承认，以至于几件作品几乎被毁。1981年转入新西兰档案馆后，整个收藏品都被数字化并在线提供——赋予这些作品前所未有的可访问性。本文探讨了该系列未能找到其受众并在其百年历史中实现任何重要文化相关性的一些原因。特别是，它考察了藏品演变过程中的每一次转变——从艺术品到人工制品再到档案——如何改变其功能意义，并在战争纪念实践中提出有关其未来的问题。