Exhibition on conservation of tapa

The Peabody Museum-Harvard University recently opened an exhibition
entitled "Embedded Nature: Tapa Cloths from the Pacific Islands".
The exhibit celebrates the museum's tapa collections and highlights
recent efforts to preserve them.  Regional variations in technology,
design and use of tapa in the Pacific Islands are presented, and
conservation challenges and solutions are examined.

Some of the objects featured in this exhibit are extremely rare and
were collected during the first half of the nineteenth century. The
exhibit includes an eighteen-foot-long tapa cloth curtain from Fiji,
a Hawaiian bedspread, an unusual and early headdress from French
Polynesia, a rare poncho from Niue, tapa beaters and other tools,
and several nineteenth-century tapa sample books.  The conservation
and rehousing of the Pacific tapa items was implemented with support
from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Upcoming
lectures/workshops will be announced shortly.  The public exhibit is
open through January 31, 2003.   For further information,
<URL:http://www.peabody.harvard.edu/>  or contact Pamela Gerardi,
Director of External Affairs at 617-496-0099.

T.Rose Holdcraft
Conservator and Administrative Head of the Conservation Department
Peabody Museum-Harvard University
11 Divinity Avenue
Cambridge, MA  02138


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 16:11
                  Distributed: Friday, August 2, 2002
                       Message Id: cdl-16-11-010
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