The Making of a Replica

Tapa is a generic term used in the Pacific region to refer to cloth made from the inner bark of trees like the paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera). The cloth is known by many names across the region—siapo in Sāmoa, ngatu in Tonga, masi in Fiji, hiapo in Niue, ‘ahu in Tahiti, and kapa in Hawai‘i. Tapa is produced and used for many purposes—for clothing, mats, masks and sculptural figures, bedding, wrapping, as well as trade and gifting.

Tapa is painstakingly created from inner tree bark, stripped and beaten repeatedly with grooved wooden mallets, dried in the sun, and decorated with natural earth pigments. In some communities, stencils and stamps create intricate geometric patterns full of symbolic motifs. Others are painted freehand to capture and depict stories and historic moments. Tapa making remains a vibrant creative practice in the Pacific Islands, whether produced in historic styles and methods or crafted into contemporary fashions with sewing machines. 

Most items in museums were not made with the intention of being under bright lights and indoor climate conditions. As part of the exhibition planning process, conservators determine safe light levels for displaying cultural heritage. The decision on how long an item should be exhibited is based on the light levels, the item's condition, and how sensitive the materials are. Some cultural materials deteriorate over time and are light sensitive, chemically unstable, or structurally vulnerable. For this reason, curators and conservators select alternative or similar items to limit exposure to environmental conditions. In this case, this tapa is one of a kind and there was no other item that could tell the same story in the exhibition. Since the tapa and its pigments are fragile and sensitive to light, the conservation team needed to find a creative long-term solution. They decided that a reproduction could be made and the original tapa could return to storage.

First, the team needed a high quality, high-definition digital image for the printer. Conservators treated the tapa—humidifying and pressing it over weeks—so that it would lay flat. Then the Peabody Museum’s Publication Imaging Registrar worked with a professional museum photographer to capture the image. Photographing the large tapa cloth in its entirety was very difficult due to its size and reflective quality. While this tapa is only 6 by 4 ½ feet (many are over 60 feet long!), the photo required a special rigging set-up to get the whole cloth in a single image. A wooden frame was built to hold and center the camera, while circular panels of light absorbing fabric were strategically placed to diffuse the distinctive shine of the tapa's black candlenut tree pigment. 

With appropriate materials selected and a digital image to work from, the exhibition team had the replica printed professionally on linen/cotton cloth with stable pigment-based inks. The curatorial and exhibits teams reviewed the test prints to make sure the reproduction could accurately represent the original.  

Have you ever scanned a photograph and printed out a copy on photo paper, but were disappointed that the colors off? Different inks, papers, saturation levels, as well as computer and printer settings can all impact what the copy looks like.

The printed cloth was an excellent start, but it could not be installed as is. The color and texture were off. A flat printed image could never exactly match the color tone and texture of the tapa, and additional adjustments were needed to resemble the original more closely.