In Cook's Wake: Tapa Treasures From The Pacific

In Cook's Wake: Tapa Treasures From The Pacific

$15.00 AUD

Availability: in stock at our Tullamarine warehouse

Condition: SECONDHAND

This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.


Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image

From the storied voyages of Captain James Cook across the vast Pacific Ocean emerges a remarkable cultural legacy — the extraordinary art of tapa cloth, woven into the very fabric of island civilisations. In Cook's Wake: Tapa Treasures from the Pacific chronicles the rich tradition of this beaten-bark textile, tracing its origins, ceremonial significance, and astonishing variety of patterns across Polynesian, Melanesian, and Micronesian cultures, drawing on the remarkable collection held by the National Library of Australia. Structured as a scholarly yet deeply accessible anthology of essays, this volume presents contributions from Nat Williams, Erica Dyer, and Crispin Howarth, each illuminating a distinct facet of the tapa tradition — from the entrepreneurial collecting endeavours of Alexander Shaw to the Hawaiian kapa cloth held in the Rex Nan Kivell Collection. Published by NLA Publishing, this is a work of both cultural reverence and art-historical rigour, one that asks the reader to reconsider what these intricate, painted cloths — described by Cook's own officers as bespeaking infinite taste and fancy — reveal about the peoples who created them, and about the Western gaze that sought to possess them.

Author: Nat Williams, Erica Dyer, Crispin Howarth
Format: Paperback
Published: 2018, NLA Publishing
Genre: Australasion & Pacific history

Description


Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image

From the storied voyages of Captain James Cook across the vast Pacific Ocean emerges a remarkable cultural legacy — the extraordinary art of tapa cloth, woven into the very fabric of island civilisations. In Cook's Wake: Tapa Treasures from the Pacific chronicles the rich tradition of this beaten-bark textile, tracing its origins, ceremonial significance, and astonishing variety of patterns across Polynesian, Melanesian, and Micronesian cultures, drawing on the remarkable collection held by the National Library of Australia. Structured as a scholarly yet deeply accessible anthology of essays, this volume presents contributions from Nat Williams, Erica Dyer, and Crispin Howarth, each illuminating a distinct facet of the tapa tradition — from the entrepreneurial collecting endeavours of Alexander Shaw to the Hawaiian kapa cloth held in the Rex Nan Kivell Collection. Published by NLA Publishing, this is a work of both cultural reverence and art-historical rigour, one that asks the reader to reconsider what these intricate, painted cloths — described by Cook's own officers as bespeaking infinite taste and fancy — reveal about the peoples who created them, and about the Western gaze that sought to possess them.