Source: Radio New Zealand
Just over a decade ago, Cora-Allan was living in Canada when she was invited to make burial garments for her grandparents from traditional Niuean barkcloth.
Although the Auckland artist “didn’t think too deeply” about it, returning to New Zealand with her partner and first baby in 2016, she threw herself into a “whirlwind” of researching and teaching herself the art form.
Now, as one of the only practitioners making large-scale hiapo in Aotearoa, Cora-Allan is at the forefront of reviving the art form. She chats to Culture 101 about finding her cultural identity as a Māori and Niuean woman and her new exhibition Recording Mauri: Moments of Light and Earth
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After travelling to Niue and speaking to hiapo practitioners about practices, growing techniques, harvesting and tools, Cora-Allan has become a knowledge-holder herself.
The patterns painted on hiapo designed for burial are meant to embody the person they’re for, she says, and one day her own children will make them for her.
Cora-Allan on reviving Niuean barkcloth after 100 years Culture 101
Cora-Allan puts the finishing touches on a work in Recording Mauri – her 2026 exhibition at Wellington’s City Gallery.
Elias Rodriguez
Although it’s a privilege to make hiapo for a loved one’s burial, it’s also not “fun”, Cora-Allan says.
But although her grief while painting her grandfather’s hiapo was “terrible”, his funeral was the first opportunity many Niuean attendees had had to see the surface of the traditional bark cloth, she says.
“It’s not anywhere in Niue – they’ve only got one giant piece that’s at the Taoga Niue Museum . Before that, Cyclone Heta came through and destroyed our museum. So the taonga is gone, lost to the sea.”
Cora-Allan in 2020 with one of her hiapo works.
Courtesy of the artist
Later, when her nana died, Cora-Allan was able to provide her own wedding hiapo for the burial, so while she was making the garment didn’t have to worry about falling tears.
“It would have been just drips and smudges because we were very, very close.”
As one of only a handful of people who can make hiapo, she doesn’t take her use of the traditional methods lightly.
The Niuean community have been really supportive of her work with hiapo, Cora-Allan says, while also asking some “really good, hard questions” about where she’s coming from.
“Who am I just to pick up this knowledge after a hundred years? Who do I think I am? When I went to Niue for the first time, I asked myself that question. I didn’t just think, ‘Oh, I’m going to do this because I’ve studied art and [artists are] inspired by things.”
Cora-Allan wants her barkcloth works to be used by tangata Niue.
Supplied
“No, I don’t agree with that process. I wanted to see if the people even wanted it from me.”
“I want the [Niuean] community to love them because I love them. And I want them to know that they come from a good place. And I don’t want AI or Google Images to rip off patterns [from her book Hiapo ] and create dumb, ugly artworks.
“I want them to be used by tangata Niue, not people who are inspired by or visited Niue. I want my people to use them. And it’s nerve-wracking because I know how things can just be taken and appropriated, and that sucks. I didn’t spend the last decade hustling for other people. I’ll hustle for my people.”
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand