A metres-long Tokelauan canoe used in the 2014 Climate Change protest in Newcastle Harbour has gone on show inside Sydney’s Australian Museum, included in a new dedicated Pasifika Gallery funded in part by a $3 million gift from regenerative farmer Alasdair MacLeod and Prudence Murdoch.

The gallery, which opened this week and is named Wansolmoana – meaning “One Salt Ocean” – includes artefacts from more than 25 Pacific nations and territories and includes new acquisitions of contemporary art as well as newly commissioned works that revive lost creative traditions.