POLYNESIAN

Our original research proposal set out an ambitious programme to integrate conservation, scientific analysis and art history for the study of Polynesian barkcloth. In this afterword, written just over four years after we started work, we reflect on the evolution of the project and its outcomes, and suggest some directions for future research. As with many of the chapters in this book, we write from a personal perspective: no research project is a mechanical undertaking, and this is even more true when working with tapa objects that are deeply endowed with intangible properties. As Pauline Reynolds writes of Pitcairn tapa cloths made by her ancestor, they ‘represent and hold the essence of her ancestresses. They are therefore the ancestresses, and access to them is essential for ongoing cultural and spiritual connection.’ (Chapter 14, p.197). advisory board developed in


'Holomua ka Hana Kapa': A Symposium on Caring for 261 Kapa and Kapa Makers at the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, December 2017
Alice Christophe Our original research proposal set out an ambitious programme to integrate conservation, scientific analysis and art history for the study of Polynesian barkcloth. In this afterword, written just over four years after we started work, we reflect on the evolution of the project and its outcomes, and suggest some directions for future research. As with many of the chapters in this book, we write from a personal perspective: no research project is a mechanical undertaking, and this is even more true when working with tapa objects that are deeply endowed with intangible properties. As Pauline Reynolds writes of Pitcairn tapa cloths made by her ancestor, they 'represent and hold the essence of her ancestresses.

Fiji Masi and the Auckland Museum Pacific Collection 269 Access Project
They are therefore the ancestresses, and access to them is essential for ongoing cultural and spiritual connection.' (Chapter 14,p.197).
At the beginning of this project the programme of work with community scholars and tapa makers was incompletely articulated. Both Andy Mills and members of our advisory board urged that this strand should be accelerated; we are deeply grateful to them and to our many colleagues in the Pacific who joined the project, and this volume,   There is much work remaining to be done on this remarkable evidence of relatively late tapa use in these islands.
The Several attendees raised the question of access to conservation advice for custodians of tapa in the Pacific -whether individuals or small museums. We believe this is an urgent question -and one that raises questions as to how large museums, with conservation teams, can best support smaller collections that are distant from them.
Another topic raised by Pacific community members on many occasions is the question of collections access. As described in this book, some museums in the Pacific have very those originating in a context of imperialism, is to make these as easily available as possible, subject to the cultural protocols of their source communities. This digital access is an essential first step into wider conversations around the decolonisation of museums. Underlying our design of the project was the conviction that tapa needed time -that it was a complex, diverse, challenging material that would not respond well to short-term engagements. We hoped that three years would be sufficient to build a new material overview of Polynesian barkcloth and to resolve some of the technical challenges around identification and scientific analysis. We hope this book speaks for some of the advances made, by the project team and our collaborators. At the same time, we end this phase of the project with an increased appreciation of the complexity of tapa's history -not only the manifold interlacing of evidence from orally transmitted traditions, writings and museum collections, but also the multiplicity of contemporary voices; not only in a Polynesia spanning many thousands of miles, but in collections dispersed worldwide. In the editing of this book we have deliberately sought to retain these distinctive approachesand sometimes differing opinions -rather than shaping them into a single narrative.
We end this project deeply hopeful for the future of tapa. The recent wave of exhibitions of Pacific barkcloth, of which our project's display at The Hunterian (Figure 23.4) is only one, are emblematic of its recognition as one of the artforms at the heart of Pacific cultures past, present and future. Museum collections must play a central role in this future, made most useful through community collaborations, reassessment of object biographies, and scientific analysis, and made accessible through the work of conservators.