Project Title: Pieces of Cloth, Pieces of Culture: Tongan Tapa Cloth
Recipient Organization: Center for Art and Public Life, California College of the Arts
Lead Artist: Siu Tuita
Genre and Date Awarded: Traditional Arts, June 2003
To be Premiered/Completed: September 2004

The Center for Art and Public Life at the California College of the Arts is collaborating with multidisciplinary artist Siu Tuita and members of the Bay Area Tongan community to create, document, and exhibit the making of Tongan tapa cloth (or bark cloth), using island-grown plant materials and dyes.

Lead artist, Siu Tuita, a member of the extended Tongan royal family, has obtained permission from the Tongan government to produce this original tapa cloth in the traditional island manner for the first time in the United States. Similar to quilts in the American tradition, women working in groups create Tongan tapa cloth. It is made from strips of beaten mulberry bark that are adhered with vegetable glue. Once the cloth is assembled, the women create the designs by rubbing brown dye into the surface by hand and then outlining the designs with black dye. In the course of making a tapa cloth, they sing traditional songs and informally do special seated dances that tell of the history and bounty of the Tongan nation.

Tongan tapa cloths are still used as bed sheets, dividers for one-room houses, “red carpets” for chiefs, and as gifts to celebrants at ceremonial occasions. Tapa cloths are treasured objects, and for decades many Tongan-American families have been keeping tapas brought with them from their native land. Although Tongans produce more tapa cloth than any other island nation in the Pacific, some of the techniques and the work songs are being lost due to the increasing rate of emigration from the island. Many of these Tongan songs and techniques have never been seen or heard by the children and grandchildren of tapa artists who left the islands years ago.

The cloth will measure 15 by 15 feet when assembled, and the process will be introduced through lectures and demonstrations at several public events. The project will culminate in summer 2004 with an exhibition at the Oakland Crafts & Cultural Arts Gallery and a dance performance by the ‘Otufelenite Tongan Performing Arts Group. An integral part of the project will be the production of a video documentary that will ensure the legacy of the project. California College of the Arts Scholar-in-Residence Ping-Ann Addo, a cultural anthropologist and expert in Polynesian culture, will coordinate the project with Siu Tuita and the Tongan artists.

The lead artist is a skilled tapa maker as well as a trained musician, singer, and dancer who founded the ‘Otufelenite (Friendly Islands) Tongan Community Nonprofit Organization, dedicated to preserving and disseminating Tongan language and culture among American-born Tongan youth in the Bay Area. She writes, “as an older Tongan woman, I am doing what is culturally required of me.”

Since 1907, the California College of the Arts (formerly the California College of Arts and Crafts) has been a pioneer in the study of art, architecture, and design. Each year, the college’s faculty of 350 distinguished artists, architects, designers, and scholars teach 1,400 students working toward undergraduate and advanced degrees. The Center for Art and Public Life was founded in 1998 and began operation in 2000 in order to support, enhance, and promote community-based learning throughout the disciplines taught at the California College of the Arts. The Center creates community partnerships based on creative practice that serve both the college community and the diverse populations of Oakland and San Francisco. (click image for a larger view)

Siu Tuita was born in Neiafu in the Vava’u region of the Kingdom of Tonga in Polynesia. She attended school in Vava’u and in the kingdom’s capital of Nuku’alofa. Her father and brothers farmed and Siu Tuita helped her mother run the home. During her childhood she watched closely and helped her mother, aunts, and older sister at weaving and tapa making around their family homes.

Between 1969 and 1978, Ms. Tuita held various positions in Tonga as a clerical administrative assistant in government offices that included the Office of the Prime Minister and the Royal Palace Office. She was chosen for the most recent of these positions at the Langa Fonua ‘o Vava’u by the wife of the Vava’u Governor. This organization oversees all of the women’s associations in Vava’u Island and, therefore, assists Tongan women in publicizing and marketing their material arts. Siu Tuita worked with women artisans in the marketing and exporting of handicrafts and with male artists who made wooden carvings.

After this, Ms. Tuita moved to Hawaii, where she worked at various positions in which she was able to publicly share her skills in Tongan song and dance with students and with audiences. It was then that she began to set herself apart as a Tongan performer and tapa artist. As a member of the Tongan royal family, Ms. Tuita has taken on the role of cultural ambassador, providing a vital link between the estimated 12,000 Tongan Americans living in the Bay Area and her homeland.