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Tapa: Pacific Histories in Cloth

The story of tapa across the Pacific – art, dress, culture and curation.

By Nina Tonga, Rachel Yates and Sean Mallon

Publication: November 2026
Pages: 484
Format: Hardback with jacket
ISBN: 978-0-9951384-8-3

RRP: $95

Tapa: Pacific histories in cloth is the most significant contribution of knowledge about tapa in a generation, offering new views on its practices, meanings and histories across art, dress, culture and curation. This multi-authored book draws upon the vast collections of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, illustrating over two hundred tapa from 18 Pacific island nations, from Taiwan to Hawai‘i, to explore its lineages.

For centuries, people across Pacific communities have created beautiful and functional tapa cloth from tropical tree bark. Understood by many names, its uses for mats, clothing, ceremony and art are well known and have been further highlighted by the recent revitalisation of customary techniques.

Tapa reveals the many creative processes that shape how tapa mediates these Indigenous histories, both in and out of the museum. Placing artists and makers at its centre, the authors and contributors explore the processes and cultural politics of contemporary tapa making alongside experiences of migration, art, dress, conservation and curatorship that reflect the complex social and cultural lives of tapa cloth.

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