In Passports, you’ll discover the experiences of people who came to New Zealand over the past 200 years.

Through family treasures and video, explore the courageous stories of immigrants who left homelands as diverse as India and Somalia, Dalmatia and the Pacific.

Some were pushed by conflict and poverty, others were pulled by hopes of a better life. Uncover the stories of arrivals – from a Cambodian trainee teacher fleeing civil war, to Polish children who survived Russian forced-labour camps, and an Englishwoman who fell in love with a New Zealand soldier.

Irish and British migrants arrived in the thousands from the mid 1800s. Sit in the tiny bunk space of a steerage-class passenger ship – could you travel like this for months? Encounter the adventures of the hardy Guard family in the lawless whaling community.

Passports celebrates the richness and diversity that immigrants have brought to New Zealand. See ceramics by European designers fleeing World War II, a piano that was offloaded at Petone beach in 1840, and the everyday objects of Chinese gold miners in Otago.

What would it take to make you leave your country?