Tapa: Situating Pacific Barkcloth in Time and Place

Situating Pacific Barkcloth Production in Time & Place was a three-year research project (2016-19) based at the Centre for Textile Conservation and Technical Art History, University of Glasgow, Scotland, and funded by the UK’s Art & Humanities Research Council (AHRC), which aimed to transform our understanding of Pacific barkcloth manufacture (see here for more information).

The exhibition Barkcloth: Revealing Pacific Craft (29 August – 8 December 2019) was recently mounted at The Hunterian Museum, University of Glasgow, showcasing the project’s research findings and an edited volume, Material Approaches to Polynesian Barkcloth: Cloth, Collections, Communities edited by Frances Lennard and Andy Mills, is currently in progress.

The project is delighted to announce that it has received further funding from the AHRC under their ‘Follow-on Funding’ scheme. The scheme provides funds to support impact and engagement interactions to enhance the value and wider benefit of the original research project through creative engagements, dissemination and knowledge exchange. The project’s new funding (January – June 2020) will be used to host a series of innovative workshops in which Pacific-based barkcloth makers, museum staff, students, UK-based Pacific communities and the general public will come together to share and exchange knowledge and stories to raise awareness, appreciation and understanding of Pacific barkcloth.

A new project website will soon be launched. It will be updated regularly and will serve to encourage an even wider and more far-reaching dissemination of project research, including access to pdf resources, barkcloth collection information and images, and more.