Our Trip to The Te Tuhi Art Gallery

This week our year 7’s and 8’s has had the privilege to visit the Te tuhi Art Gallery. Well today our class got an amazing opportunity to go. We had the chance to Explore more information about the Polynesian Tapa and art. There were two common people that had shown us around Te Tuhi, which was Louisa and Jeremy.

As we got to the Gallery our first activity we had done was to create our very own Tapa made out of Paper, dye, and brown ink. We had to create our tapas using 4 symbols that represented us, which were our Culture, Family, Interests and Home. It was great because we could see how a tapa could be created.

There were also some examples from the cultures, Tonga, Samoa and Fiji. My favorite Tapa were the ones from Tonga. Why? Well of course it's because I am Tongan, but also cause there were a lot of texture and detail in it. There were other cultures too, like Niue and Hawaii. The Niuean Tapa which is called (Hiapo) had more detail an geometric patterns in it which also made it look cool and great.

Did you also know that Tapa could be used for all sorts of things. Like Weddings, a funeral and a Birthday. Some cultures also use it as an outfit to dance in or the Big 21st!!!!

So far I've learnt a lotttt!! of things about tapa. I enjoyed our Trip today because we also got to watch videos about Artists and the art that they have created, which was the best part.