Mauatua Fa'ara-Reynolds is a Mā'ohi-Norf'k writer and tapa-maker based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. They recently completed an MA in Creative Writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters, where their thesis—a collection of essays and poetry—examined tapa-making and the reconstruction of Indigenous bodies in the aftermath of colonialism. This work received the Letteri Family Prize for Creative Non-Fiction.
Fa'ara-Reynolds comments: 'I have always understood tapa (barkcloth) as a kind of text: a body of work that must be read to be understood. But how do I explain that to someone who has never seen tapa before? Or felt its ridges between the fingers? Glided their eyes over the lines and curves of ink painted upon it? At the time, I was reading the work of my beautiful friend ada duffy, who had written a stellar ars poetica, and I thought: this is it. I translated Ars Poetica into Tahitian and French, adapting each to their respective material—Ano'ite o Tapa, meaning the art (or artist) of tapa, and L'Art D'Essayer, meaning the art of essays, or of trying (the English word essay is derived from the French essayer). To me, these three mediums are the same. They are made from trees and from hands, from pressure and patience, from the desire to make sense of the world and the equally urgent desire to offer something back.'