What is your VVAI?

This project is a prototype that looks at the idea of “Naming, Renaming, and Unnaming Cultural Objects”, with Siapo as the focal object.

Please explore the mind map, follow a journey, and familiarise yourself with these methods of naming. In the forum space, feel free to offer your own knowledge of these themes to build a foundation for sharing the names and contexts of an object.

VVAI represents “wai” and “vai” as the words for water in Māori and Samoan respectively. The pictorial aspects of the word are also reflective of patterns in these cultures, like that of a Samoan tatau, or a woven tāniko.

These patterns tell our stories as Pacific peoples, and our connections across the vast ocean, evident in similarities shared in our languages, traditions, and objects. Despite this likeness, there are nuances between our nations, as well as within subgroups like villages, families, and community groups. As a result, names of objects differ greatly across cultures as a result of contextual circumstances.

“What is your VVAI” aims to construct a framework to help others understand how these object names originate. Through sub-themes such as material, place, and people, object meanings can be seen through the eyes of Pacific communities, and the contexts in which we exist and thrive.

VVAI by Ashleigh Taupaki, Jasmine Tuiā, Abhay Adhikari, Mediale, Tanya Boyarkina, Oscar Cass-Darweish and Übersee-Museum Bremen is licensed under CC BY SA 4.0.

VVAI is a creative duo consisting of artists and best friends Ashleigh Taupaki and Jasmine Tuiā. As exhibiting artists, the two explore ideas of cultural identity through a wide range of mediums and research. As activators, the duo facilitate workshops for their communities to share practices, experiences, and narratives as Pacific peoples. During their undergraduate study, they learned that they come from the same village in Samoa – Matautu Lefaga. This strengthens and informs their friendship and practices, and reminds them that fate, alofa, and ancestral connections bring us together.

Ashleigh Taupaki (Ngāti Hako, Samoan) is an artist and writer based in Tāmaki Makaurau, New Zealand. Her work focuses on place, namely landforms in Hauraki, and the stories and histories that reflect the people of the land. Her work often looks into the intersection of mātautanga Māori (knowledge) and ecology, and utilises memory as a research tool.

Jasmine Tuiā (Samoan) is an artist based in Tāmaki Makaurau, New Zealand. She is a multi-disciplinary artist who works with contemporary interpretations of traditional Samoan siapo (tapa cloth), reflective in her colourful stitching of special moments on the bark cloth. Her works are embedded in concepts of counter narratives, and contribute to the rich and growing collection of perspectives emerging from the Pacific.

Mediale is an international media arts agency. We work year-round to develop and deliver new commissions, live events and artistic development. We deliver careful, long-term interventions & holistic artist development, whilst producing high profile arts events that stimulate new thinking.

Oscar Cass-Darweish is an artist and digital practitioner working in the areas of web design & development, audiovisual production and creative coding. Artistic and critical methods are applied in the context of these fields to deconstruct and refigure human-technical relationships in the space of hardware, software and code.

Tanya Boyarkina is an artist, curator, and cultural/digital producer aiming to demystify complex technological processes through playful, collaborative, and participative formats. She is the Creative Producer at Mediale curating and delivering online and real-life projects and events which connect audiences of all ages and abilities with evolving digital cultures.

This prototype was developed as part of the NEO Collections project and is produced by Mediale.
Funded by the Digital Culture Programme of the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation).
Funded by the Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien (Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media).

Siapo is the Samoan tapa cloth, decorated with patterns. This textile occurs throughout the Pacific, and follows a simple formula of soaked and beaten Mulberry bark, and an ink for designs.

The name of this object differs according to its use, the setting in which it sits, and the person who owns it.

Others across the Pacific have named siapo as:
Hiapo (Niue)
Aute (Māori, NZ)
Ngatu (Tonga)
and Masi (Fiji).

These names adapt to the changing contexts of tradition, exchange, and storytelling.

What would you name/rename/un-name siapo?

Thanks for submitting!

This website is currently designed to work on laptop / desktop displays, please try another device.

What is your VVAI?

About

Artists

Creative Production

Funded by