Curriculum links
Learning areas
The Arts, Social Studies
Which strands will it fit with?
- The Arts - Visual Arts - Developing Practical Knowledge in the Visual Arts, Understanding the Visual Arts in Context, Communicating and Interpreting in the Visual Arts
- Social Studies - Identity, Culture, and Organisation, The Economic World
Key Competencies
Thinking, Using language, symbols, and texts, Relating to others
Levels of achievement
Levels 1-4 (The Arts), levels 1-8 (Social Studies)
Year groups
Years 1-13
Which topics of study can it support?
- New Zealand Art and Artists
- New Zealand Icons
- Pacific Society - Past and Present
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How long might this take?
Allow 10-15 minutes.
Where do I find it?
- Level 4, Tangata o le Moana - look for the coconut trees!
- Lost? Ask a Te Papa Host.
Why should I take my class to visit this?
- See a sculpture made by one of New Zealand’s better known Pacific artists.
- This is a good example of contemporary art made with recycled materials.
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What is there to do there?
- Check out this contemporary artwork and see which visual clues the artist is using to convey his message.
- Compare this artwork to the more traditional artworks in the Tangata o le Moana exhibition.
What should I know about this?
- Pisupo lua afe (Corned beef 2000) is a life-sized bullock made by artist Michel Tuffery from flattened cans of corned beef.
- In the Pacific Islands, and also in Pasifika communities in New Zealand, there are many traditional gifts of exchange. However, tins of pisupo (corned beef) have become increasingly popular as gifts at weddings, funerals, feasts, and other special occasions. Pisupo plays an important role not only in the Pacific Island diet, but in the culture as well.
- Cattle are raised in the Pacific Islands, but much of the pisupo is imported.
- Pisupo lua afe (Corned beef 2000) featured in an exhibition of works by artists of Pacific Island descent, called Bottle Ocean. This exhibition gave artists the opportunity to create artworks which expressed their views of contemporary Pasifika culture.
- Michel Tuffery is a Polynesian artist born in New Zealand to a Samoan mother and European father. He also has Cook Island and Tahitian heritage. Tuffery works with a number of different media in his artworks - printmaking, posters, woodcuts, lithography, sculpture, set design, and performance pieces.
- Using the corned beef bullock, Tuffery is commenting on the impact of global trade and colonial economics on Pacific Island cultures. In particular, he looks at how an imported good has become integral to Pasifika customs and has, in some cases, replaced traditional items. Tuffery’s bullock, an animal not traditionally raised in the Pacific Islands, questions whether foreign intervention encourages independence or fosters dependency.
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Possible topics for discussion
- What materials has the artist used and why? (Michel Tuffery has used recycled corned beef cans to show how an imported good has become integral to Pasifika customs.)
- What other recycled materials could you make this bullock from? Or could you add something to it?
- If you were to translate this sculpture into a New Zealand context, what type of sculpture might you make and what would you make it out of?
Further information
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Related objects
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