New Zealand Women's Institutes and the Hawke's Bay woman who founded the movement, Jerome Spencer, are celebrated in a new exhibition. In fact it's a double celebration as the exhibition called For Home and Country also marks the reopening of the MTG Hawke's Bay, after the museum and gallery's closure at the end of last year for remedial work. The exhibition's guest curator is Emeritus Professor Kay Morris Matthews, who's written a biography of Jerome Spencer - known as Bessie to her family and friends - to mark the NZWI's centenary. The first Institute at Rissington in Hawke's Bay was the start of a large network of them around the country. They helped rural women, who often felt isolated, to meet, talk, produce handcrafts and have fun. Lynn Freeman talks with the Museum's Director Laura Vodanovich, and first asked why it had to close its doors. For Home and Country opens at the MTG Hawke's Bay on Saturday July 24. Kay Morris Matthews' book is called Lifting Horizons, Anna Elizabeth Jerome Spencer, a biography.