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Koru Cicatrice — A Māori-Samoan Tapa Cloth Collaborative and Oral Archive
This work is part of the Koru Cicatrice — A Māori-Samoan Tapa Cloth Collaborative and Oral Archive (Pacific, 2021–present) series. For other Pacific adaptations, see Pacific / Indigenous / Eastern Europe.
A living collaborative textile work using tapa cloth and traditional weaving to narrate the cycle and eternal recurrence. The Koru spiral (Māori tradition) interweaves with Samoan tattooing patterns (pe'a, tatau), creating panels that document Leif and Katita as returned ancestors. Participants make siapo from mulberry bark using traditional methods; as they weave, their family and genealogical stories are recorded, creating a parallel oral archive. The work explicitly connects the leather distributed theme to traditional textile memory—weaving and tattooing as genealogical recording—while the seven-fold structure mirrors the cycle's recurrence. The installation circulates between communities rather than remaining fixed, embodying the principle of return itself. Samoan weavers have emphasized its grounding in siapo-making genealogy; some Māori artists have raised concerns about whether it adequately centers Māori voice rather than universalizing through "Pacific unity."[citation needed] Satellite iterations include a Koru Cicatrice — The Shoulder-Blade Spiral Kente Collaboration (Accra) and participatory workshop cycles.