Pieces of Cloth, Pieces of Culture: Tapa from Tonga and the Pacific Islands

Pieces of Cloth, Pieces of Culture: Tapa from Tonga and the Pacific Islands

Pieces of Cloth, Pieces of Culture: Tapa from Tonga and the Pacific Islands.
Addo, Ping-Ann, Ph.D. 2004.

Pieces of Cloth, Pieces of Culture is a catalogue of contemporary and antique tapa (bark cloth), mainly from Tonga, from an exhibit that debuted in Oakland in 2004. The focus of the exhibit was a large (16' x 24') tapa made especially for this exhibit by Tongan women living in the San Francisco Bay Area, shown with tapa cloths from the collection of the Department of Anthropology at the California Academy of Sciences. Text includes essays on the cultural significance and history of tapa cloth, tools and materials used, and the process of making tapa, as well as information on the Bay Area Tongan community and interviews with the artists. Published by the California College of the Arts in partnership with the California Academy of Sciences.

50 pages, 34 color plates, 44 black & white photographs. Soft cover $9.95


CONTENTS

Foreword
Sonia BasSheva Mañjon, Ph.D.

Curator's Note
Ping-Ann Addo

Message from the Tonga Consul General, San Francisco
The Honorable Tevita Kolokihakaufisi

Tapa at the California Academy of Sciences
Russell Hartman

Introduction: Treasured Textiles and Transnational Tongan Communities

Chapter 1: Ngatu in Oakland: New Cloth, New Song, New Associations

Catalog

Chapter 2: Tongan Communities, Arts, and Artists in the San Francisco Bay Area

Artists' Statements and Portraits

Chapter 3: Encountering Tapa in the Pacific Islands

Chapter 4: Tongan Arts as a Transnational Culture System

Ordering information

To order, please see our Ordering Publications page.

News

SSI Interns 2001

The Summer Systematics Institute is an 8 week research internship that hands-on, collections-based undergraduate research experience at the California Academy of Sciences.

 

...

The California Academy of Sciences is pleased to announce that 12 new members have joined the ranks of the Academy Fellows, a governing group of around 300 distinguished scientists who have made...

Today we are pleased to officially announce the launch of PLoS Hubs: Biodiversity, a new pilot Web site to connect the biodiversity community with...

Researchers have found evidence that hominins - early human ancestors - used stone tools to cleave meat from animal bones more than 3.2 million years ago.

Our ancient ancestors were using tools to butcher meat one million years earler than previously thought, scientists revealed tonight in a discovery that will rewrite the history of mankind....

Early human ancestors may have been using tools about 800,000 years earlier than thought, according to a new study based on newfound bone evidence - prehistoric leftovers linked to the famed "Lucy...

As early as 3.4 million years ago, some individuals with a taste for meat and marrow — presumably members of the species best known for the skeleton called Lucy — apparently butchered with...

An archaeological find has added a new chapter to the history of humans and could shift the Stone Age back almost one million years.

Small-brained human ancestors used stone tools to whack into large mammals some 800,000 years earlier than previously thought.