Watch: Tui Emma Gillies at the ‘Ahu: Ngā Wairua o Hina wānanga
Watch Tongan ngatu (tapa) artist Tui Emma Gillies talk about her work as a tapa maker and artist.
“I always put a contemporary spin on things. I think we are living in today’s world and I use the old ways because I feel it's so important to pull it out of a museum and be able to bring it into my practice. I think that’s just so important because it’s like we're taking our ancestors with us.”
Tui Emma Gillies is a Tongan artist from Aotearoa and deeply connected to the pracitce of ngatu, inspired by her grandmother ‘Ema Topeni’s colourful ngatu that surrounded her growing up and takes her inspiration from her mother, Sulieti Fieme‘a Burrows.
Fascinated by the Shaw book, she is grateful that to have that to reference as well as highlighting the care and skill of her ancestors, and her own work blends tradition and contemporary forms believing it’s vital to bring these ancestral practices into today’s world, learning from nature and keeping culture alive beyond museums.
Watch Tui Emma Gillies talking about her Tongan ngatu practice and what it means to her at the 2023 ‘Ahu: Ngā Wairua o Hina in Tahiti.
‘Ahu: Ngā Wairua o Hina
In 2021, Te Papa acquired a rare book containing tapacloth samples, cut from larger pieces collected during Captain Cook’s Pacific voyages in 1768, 1772, and 1776, and compiled by Alexander Shaw in 1787. The samples represent tapa-making practices from various islands including Hawai‘i, Tahiti and Tonga.
In 2023, in Tahiti, ‘Ahu: Ngā Wairua o Hina gathered tapa makers of Tongan, Sāmoan, Niuean, Fijian, Hawaiian, Tahitian, Pitcairn-Norfolk Island, and Māori descent for five days to learn about and re-establish their living relationships to the cloth held within Alexander Shaw’s book.
Through a process of wānanga this group of makers created two tapa bundles, incorporating the ideas of past, present, and future – one of the bundles is with Te Papa and the other with Te Fare Iamanaha-Musée de Tahiti et des Îles.
