Tapa: Pacific histories in cloth

Book Author Nina Tonga, Rachel Yates and Sean Mallon
Rights Available World excl. NZ. And North America

Tapa: Pacific histories in cloth is the most significant contribution of knowledge about tapa in a generation, offering new views on its practices, meanings and histories across art, dress, culture and curation. This multi-authored book draws upon the vast collections of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, illustrating over two hundred tapa from 18 Pacific island nations, from Taiwan to Hawai‘i, to explore its lineages.

For centuries, people across Pacific communities have created beautiful and functional tapa cloth from tropical tree bark. Understood by many names, its uses for mats, clothing, ceremony and art are well known and have been further highlighted by the recent revitalisation of customary techniques.

Tapa reveals the many creative processes that shape how tapa mediates these Indigenous histories, both in and out of the museum. Placing artists and makers at its centre, the authors and contributors explore the processes and cultural politics of contemporary tapa making alongside experiences of migration, art, dress, conservation and curatorship that reflect the complex social and cultural lives of tapa cloth.

About the Author
Dr Nina Tonga is Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. She has worked as an art curator in Aotearoa and the wider Pacific for over fifteen years. Nina is the co-author with Dr Sarah Farrar and Jill Trevelyan of Robin White: Something is happening here, which was a finalist in the 2023 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.

Dr Rachel Yates is a Pacific historian. A former Curator Pacific Cultures at Te Papa, she has contributed to several publications including Te Papa Press titles Flora (2023) and Tatau: A history of Sāmoan tattooing (2018). She now works as a historian for Manatū Taonga, the Ministry for Culture and Heritage.

Dr Sean Mallon is Senior Curator Pacific Cultures at Te Papa. He is the author of articles and books on the history of Pacific peoples in New Zealand, Pacific arts and museology.