Vaiei Tupuna

Cora-Allan, Dalani Tanahy, Doron Semu, Hinatea Colombani, Liviana Qaranivalu, Nikau Hindin, Pauline Reynolds, Sarah Vaki, Sue Pearson, Sulieti Fieme’a Burrows, Tui Emma Gillies, and ‘Uhila Moe Langi Nai
 

Vaiei Tupuna is an exhibition of contemporary tapa from across Moana Nui that brings together newly commissioned responses to taonga from the collections of Ngā Puhipuhi o Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington Art Collection and the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, alongside historic and contemporary artworks that acknowledge and activate this practice. Gifted by Sarah Vaki, elder and master tapa maker from Fatu Iva in the Marquesas, the title of the exhibition translates as “heritage of our ancestors”.

Vaiei Tupuna takes up the shared genealogies and histories of tapa to celebrate the vitality of the artform in the present, and to extend and build knowledge for the future. Hina, the ancestor figure of tapa makers, is present throughout Vaiei Tupuna.

Vaiei Tupuna both opens and closes with a 1785 portrait of Poeatua. This portrait was one of the first images of an Indigenous woman of Moana Nui the Pacific to circulate in Europe. Poeatua is part of a matrilineal line that extends back to Hina. Poeatua’s presence here represents a commitment to rereading the past, restoring knowledge, honouring our ancestors by speaking their names.

The exhibition features three components:

Hala Kafa, 2024 by ‘Uhila Moe Langi Nai is the result of an invitation from Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery to engage with a Tongan tapa, in its collection. Gifted to Victoria University of Wellington by the University of the South Pacific in 1999, this tapa known as a ngatu tāhina is notable for its ceremonial scale of over 24-metres. Nai has conceived of her response as an iteration of its original gift. In Tonga, to gift koloa is a sign of respect. Hala Kafa transposes the horizontal scale of the ngatu into six vertical lengths, and its hand-beaten kupesi into stylised, rhythmic forms, returning koloa or gift to its original, anonymous makers.

 ‘Ahu: Ngā Wairua o Hina is the name of a project taken by Te Papa to Tahiti in late 2023, in which eleven tapa makers were invited to create work in response to a tapa sampler collated by bookseller Alexander Shaw in 1787. Hosted by Te Fare Iamanaha Musée de Tahiti et des Îles artists Cora-Allan, Dalani Tanahy, Doron Semu, Hinatea Colombani, Liviana Qaranivalu, Nikau Hindin, Pauline Reynolds, Sarah Vaki, Sue Pearson, Sulieti Fieme’a Burrows and Tui Emma Gillies put together a portfolio of contemporary tapa representing ideas of the past, present and future. These commissions are displayed for the first time, shown with three of Shaw’s tapa samplers from collections throughout New Zealand.

Hina Sings… is an iterative collaboration between Pauline Reynolds and Sue Pearson, two of the artists who also took part in ‘Ahu: Ngā Wairua o Hina. Spread across two galleries it comprises ancestral tīputa and hei, a wall work made of ‘ahufara tapa and an immersive experience of poetry, song and moving image made by the artists with their children, and projected onto a screen of ‘ahufara tapa.

A collaboration between artists, makers, institutions, and curators, Vaiei Tupunua asserts the enduring wairua of tapa’s ancestors, and present and future practitioners.

Curated by Sophie Thorn, Rosalie Koko, Isaac Te Awa, Rebecca Rice, and Nālani Wilson-Hokowhitu.

Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery is the art gallery of Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington located in Wellington, the capital city of Aotearoa New Zealand. It is a forum for critical thinking about art and its histories as well as the professional structure within which the Victoria University of Wellington Art Collection is managed. The gallery’s programmes aim to test and expand art form and disciplinary boundaries and create new opportunities to bring artists together and generate fresh conversations. The gallery is a remarkable architectural statement designed by the late Sir Ian Athfield, one of New Zealand’s foremost architects.