In 2021, with the Te Papa Foundation’s support, Te Papa acquired a rare book of tapa cloth samples, one of many assembled by Alexander Shaw in 1787. At the wānanga in 2023, artists were given the opportunity to respond to the Shaw book and exchange knowledge between tapa experts from across the Pacific. Here, Dr Marine Vallée Assistant curator at Te Fare Iamanaha – Musée de Tahiti et des Îles, talks about welcoming the group and what it meant to Te Fare Iamanaha.
In October 2023, a few months after its reopening, Te Fare Iamanaha – Musée de Tahiti et des Îles welcomed a wonderful group of tapa makers from throughout the Moana nui a hiva. Led by the curatorial team of Te Papa Tongarewa and ‘ahu expert Dr Pauline Reynolds, they spent a week within our walls – or rather, mostly, in our garden.
This gathering offered a fantastic opportunity for the makers to artistically respond to the taonga in Shaw’s book, allowing, among other things, the return of tapa samples from Tahiti to their home island.
It was also a way to foster exchanges between ‘ahu experts from across the ocean and provided an extraordinary opportunity for local students from the Centre des métiers d’art (CMA) and DN-Made at the Ra‘apoto High School to learn about natural fibre techniques and design.
Kaitiakitanga – guardianship
While unique mastering was showcased and precious information gathered, this week-long event also proved to be an extremely touching expression of what our role as kaitiaki, museum caretaker, stands for.
The institutional exchange enabled a swift momentum of meaning enlivened by the re-appropriation and thriving artistic responses amongst the intergenerational participants. Some familiar names and faces thus arrived in Tahiti, and new connections rapidly developed with the other members of the project.
Te Papa’s Martin Lewis (Poutiaki Pukapuka Matua | Senior Librarian) showed infinite patience in allowing detailed consultations of Alexander Shaw’s tapa sample book – which triggered thrilling exchanges on patterns, the thinness of cloths and manufacturing techniques. He thus repeatedly turned those precious pages for the participants, us as Te Fare Iamanaha, and the students of the Centre des métiers d’art (CMA) and DN-Made Ra‘apoto High School. Other students from the University of French Polynesia visiting the museum as part of their curriculum were also able to benefit from this showing.
Our museum thus lived to the sound of tapa beating for few days and generous exchanges took place. One was, for instance, able to see how patterns visible on one of the tīputa of the heva tūpāpa‘u – the mourner’s costume currently on loan from the British Museum in our walls, were featured on one of the book’s Tahitian samples.
Embedding connections
Another enduring aspect of this wānanga is how Fijian tapa from artist Liviana Qaranivalu’s tapa plantation was purchased by the CMA and, as a physical mark of this exchanges will, in future productions, embed moana connections.
All the participants were called to express three responses to the taonga, reflecting on past, present and future, to be presented to each of the two museums. In such short amount of time, it was a challenged well taken up.
Presenting the tapa
The presentation of these tapa by each of the tapa makers was extremely moving: they revealed the gorgeous responses imbued with whakapapa, personal narratives and experiences combined with exchanged influences and enrichments. Nuances of bark colours and motifs in the dimming sunlight in the museum’s garden also added to the emotion.
A couple of tapa makers chose to ask museum’s staff members to actually cut their work to divide them in two so the work could be given to both institutions. What a challenge for us curators, not used to cutting or materially modifying an object in such way!
Tutana Tetuanui-Peters and Sarah Vaki, the two Marquesan sisters and elders of the group were invited to speak first and each of the participants followed, before all the pieces were placed one by one on the top of each other, and the tapa bundles were closed in a unified movement.
Tapa was a focus of an international festival organised in Tahiti in 2014,[1] and tapa practices have perdured in Fatu Hiva where Tutana and Sarah are from. Additionally, local initiatives led by the ‘Arioi Cultural and Artistic Center of Hinatea Colombani and Moeava Meder reinvigorated tapa making in Tahiti over the last decade. Nonetheless, the ‘Ahu: ngā wairua o Hina event further anchored the reaffirmation of tapa making, beating boundaries of time and space.
This project stands as a stepping stone for further partnerships between our two museums and community collaboration across the moana. It also brought interdisciplinary approaches within curatorial practices that will most certainly be deepened.
[1] Michel Charleux et al., TAPA DE L’ÉCORCE À L’ÉTOFFE, ART MILLÉNAIRE D’OCÉANIE. De l’Asie du Sud-Est à la Polynésie orientale. Paris : Somogy, 2017.
Find out more about the wānanga
‘Ahu: Ngā wairua o Hina – Tapa workshops in Tahiti
