A festival Saturday will help close out an exhibit on Samoan tattooing in its final days at the Bishop Museum.
“Tatau: Marks of Polynesia,” hosted at the museum since 2021, will be taken down and returned to the Japanese American National Museum on Tuesday.
The displays of photos and artifacts illustrate the uniqueness of the cultural art form.
“We’ll have live tattooing demonstrations,” said Brandon Bunag, the museum’s vice president of public programs. “There will be a Samoan practitioner, a Hawaiian practitioner as well as a Tongan practitioner.”
Along with live demonstrations, there will be music, entertainment and an assortment of food trucks, Bunag said.
“Tatau: Marks of Polynesia” was the brainchild of exhibit coordinator Sulu’ape Steve Looney, who said he brought up the idea with a Japanese tattoo artist and friend of his, Takahiro Kitamura. Kitamura had completed an exhibit on Japanese tattooing.
“We introduced it and it was accepted,” Looney said. “We traveled to Samoa, New Zealand, California, Vegas and a few other places to capture all of the photography and do some film work as well.”
Kitamura curated the exhibit while John Agcaoili, a friend of Kitamura and Looney’s, was the photographer. Looney, who also owns the Pacific Soul Tattoo shop on Ward Avenue, helped to create the exhibit in his spare time. He said his shop is one of two on Oahu that does traditional Samoan tattooing.
“The most important part about it was being able to share it,” Looney said. “You don’t get paid to do this sort of thing. I just love to share what I’ve learned about my culture and what I’ve been able to do for everybody.”
In Samoan culture, tattooing is comparable to a rite of passage into adulthood, Looney said. Designs can be unique to the artist but always follow the same layout established thousands of years ago when Samoan tattooing was created.
“The tattoo itself tells the story of the Samoan male and Samoan female’s duties and roles within the household and community and in their village,” Looney explained. “It’s very recognizable, and so that’s how we’re able to share it with the world.”
At the exhibit, one can view modern and traditional tattooing tools along with striking images of Samoan tattooing, Looney said. Some of the photos display a tattoo style unique to Looney’s family, passed down to him through six generations.
The exhibit also includes displays that show other Polynesian cultures’ influences on Samoan tattooing, such as Hawaiian and Tongan, Looney said.
“In Hawaii it’s a mixed plate of different cultures,” Looney said. “A lot of folks here come from mixed cultural backgrounds. The way it turns up in the end, it’s beautiful because it’s a mix of all these different ultures.”
Looney and Bunag both said they have heard only positive responses to the exhibit. Visitors have enjoyed viewing the photographed tattoos and being able to understand the meanings behind them, Looney said.
Bunag said the exhibit has allowed tattoo enthusiasts of various cultural backgrounds to connect with the Samoan tattoo culture. The Bishop Museum has hosted the exhibit since November, longer than most of the traveling exhibits it’s hosted in the past.
Looney and his two brothers, Su’a Peter Sulu’ape and Su’a Sulu’ape Aisea Toetu’u, will perform the tattoo demonstrations at this Saturday’s closing festival. He hopes that those who haven’t yet visited the “Tatau” exhibit will take the time to do so this weekend to learn more about the Samoan tattooing culture and its importance.
The Bishop Museum is open every day from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturday’s festival will be held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Once the “Tatau” exhibit closes at the Bishop Museum, it is scheduled to be displayed at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts in Salt Lake City in the late summer of 2023.
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Linsey Dower covers ethnic and cultural affairs and is a corps member of Report for America, a national service organization that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues and communities.
