Jo Torr: Tupaia's Paintbox

9 September - 12 October 2005 in the Hirschfeld Gallery

‘My work explores the types of cultural exchange that have happened, and continue to happen, between Polynesian and non-Polynesian peoples—the way that we change by contact with one another… and the ideas that form our notion of what is "Pacific".’ – Jo Torr, 2004

This exhibition brings together two recent bodies of work by Wellington-based artist Jo Torr. Torr’s work explores the complex issues surrounding the exchange of cloth in early encounters between European explorers and Polynesian peoples.  

Positioned as a pair, two of Torr’s ‘Transit of Venus’ gowns are engaged in a dialogue of cultural exchange: one gown is made from red European-style cloth and the other from tapa cloth. Designed in the style of the 1770s—the era of Captain Cook’s voyages to the South Seas—these gowns present an exchange of materials, ideas and value systems. Cook brought red and blue cloth to the Pacific on the Endeavour for its dazzling colour. The red cloth, however, was attractive to Polynesians for reasons the explorers did not anticipate. In some Polynesian cultures the colour red is associated with mana and tapu and therefore anything red is valuable and highly coveted. In return for gifts of red cloth and other trade items, the Europeans were regularly presented with great lengths of tapa—as part of an elaborate gift giving that symbolised, among other things, the embracing of visitors by the local community.

As part of his careful documentation of the region, Captain Cook collected samples of different tapa cloths and brought these back to Europe. Using one such sample of Tahitian tapa, Cook’s wife Elizabeth made her husband a waistcoat which she decorated with an embroidered design of ribbons and flowers. Due to the fateful circumstances of Cook’s final voyage, the gift was never presented to him. Elizabeth Cook kept the waistcoat for the rest of her life and it is now held in the archives of the Mitchell Library in Sydney, Australia. A photograph of this historical document inspired the format of Torr’s ‘Tupaia’s Paintbox’, a selection of five embroidered waistcoat panels made from tapa cloth.

Both this new work and the current exhibition take their titles from the chapter ‘Tupaia’s Paintbox’ in Anne Salmond’s award-winning book The Trial of a Cannibal Dog—Captain Cook in the South Seas (2003). Tupaia was a Tahitian high priest who accompanied Cook on the Endeavour and was a key intermediary between the Europeans and the indigenous peoples they encountered. In her book, Salmond posits the theory that Tupaia was the artist of several key works painted during Cook’s first voyage. What is remarkable about Tupaia’s paintings is that, unlike those paintings done by Banks, Spöring and the other artists onboard the Endeavour, they represent scenes of life in the Pacific from a Polynesian perspective.

Torr has embroidered patterns derived from Tupaia’s early paintings of Polynesia onto tapa cloth. As Torr explains: ‘The works that make up the series "Tupaia’s Paintbox" celebrate and combine two tangible examples of exchange: that of Elizabeth Cook’s embroidery onto the tapa that Cook brought back from his voyages of discovery and the images made by the Tahitian tohunga Tupaia with precious watercolour and paper given to him by Cook’.

If Tupaia’s Paintbox is a meditation on the exchange of cloth in Cook’s first encounters with Tahitians, it is also a comment on the ongoing inspiration one can gather from other cultures and the never-ending processes of cross-cultural exchange. Although her works draw on historical documents and events, Jo Torr is not restaging history. She is a contemporary artist working in the contemporary world and, as such, she is part of an increasing dialogue surrounding clothes and identity within the Pacific region.

Jo Torr: Tupaia’s Paintbox is scheduled to coincide with the 2005 Montana World of Wearable Arts Show (23-25, 29-30 September and 1-2 October 2005).

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Designworks Enterprise IG are proud sponsors of the Michael Hirschfeld Gallery. Thanks also to Colourcraft; and Publication & Design, Wellington City Council. City Gallery Wellington is managed by the Wellington Museums Trust with major funding from the Wellington City Council.