On the heavenly beaches of Tahiti, the public came in large numbers to attend the conferences, shows, but above all to see tattoos made during the 7th edition of the Polynesia Tatau Festival.
The word "tattoo" derives from the Polynesian expression: "TA-ATUA", a combination of « TA » meaning drawing inscribed in the skin and « ATUA » meaning spirit. And so it is where the actual name « tattoo » came from, that the seventh edition of the festival carried by the association Polynesia Tatau took root. This year is distinguished by the location of the event taking place in the west of the island in the former Meridian, a luxurious four-star hotel located on a white sandy beeach, which became a Sofitel in 2018. This relocation to the town of Punaauia allowed to welcome new features that were not possible in the botanical gardens in the arts and crafts center of Tahiti, where the festival was held previously.
Outside, a seduced and consequent audience, some of which came from metropolitan France for the event, flocked around the captivating traditional Marquesan dances. Throughout these four days, fire dancing and demonstrations of weaving or engraving followed one another to the rhythm of the beating hammers of traditional tattoo machines in the gardens of the hotel. While lectures, candidates for the election of Miss and Mister Tattoo, eclectic concerts performed by renowned local artists, such as Meari U, Koru or The Headbangers of Tikahiri, and participants in the classic Best of Day took place on the indoor stage: the association has gratified its public with an abundance of entertainment.
But the heart of this event was located in the Matisse room of the hotel. About fifty artists, including forty from the Fenua (territory designating Tahiti and the neighbouring islands) came to exhibit their know-how of Polynesian tattooing.
Many new faces, concentrating on their current tattoo, went beyond individual booths. The will to put the emphasis on the young generation of tattooists is tangible and assumed. After eight years of good and loyal service as president of the association Polynesia Tatau, Thierry Pirato passed the torch to Tamata Tuatini: "We have bet on youth because there are really talented young people, who have lots of imagination and ideas. With the Polynesia Tatau association, we are just there to support them and show them the right way. Some young people here have only been tattooing for two or three years and they already have a level that you normally reach after 15 years of experience. The association wants to highlight them so that they can serve as an example for the next ones. This is the future of Polynesian tattooing."
Although the work born from the needles of tattoo artists sometimes skillfully mixes styles incorporating realistic touches or inspired by contemporary graphic trends, the artists do not lose touch with the roots of pure Polynesian tattooing. The preservation and transmission of this culture, a link in the Polynesian identity, are also at the heart of their concerns. The association has been collaborating for several years on these issues with the arts and crafts center of Tahiti, while the festival is supported by the Ministry of Culture of French Polynesia.
During the festival, the conferences emphasized this intrinsic link between tattooing and Polynesian culture. Polynesian tattoo marks the belonging of an individual to a territory, a family, a specific caste. As a social landmark, it allowed to record the events and highlights of each person's life. Polynesian tattoo is also part of a sacred dimension: through its rites and symbols, which sign a very specific representation of the world and of oneself, it aims at making the link with the "Mana", divine and vital energy which dictates the failures and successes of each person.
Tattooing, just like weaving and dancing, is a fundamental link in a rich whole that carries the millenary and profound identity of Polynesian culture. Far beyond the popularization of the term Polynesian, which includes Polynesian, Samoan, Marquesan and Maori practices, each of which is specific and complex in many aspects, as Heretu Tetahiotupa, lecturer and co-director of the excellent report "Patutiki, the art of tattooing in the Marquesas Islands" points out. It is in the footsteps of his uncle Teiki Huukena that the young man began to develop a holistic approach to tattooing, which takes into account its links with the whole of Polynesian culture and history. "Let's understand what we have been bequeathed to us," the young man invites, "because if we don't understand these links we will continue weaving but without knowing where or why".
The French colonization represented a real breaking point in the transmission of rites and knowledge of the art of Polynesian tattoo. Today, new ways of transmission are opening up, as Tuatini Tamata, the president of Polynesia Tatau, points out: "It's easier to get informed. Before, to find out about Polynesian symbols, you sometimes had to go to museums to take pictures in secret. Now there are many books and videos on the internet about the meanings of these symbols."
The popularization and interest aroused by Polynesian tattoo, come to question the legitimacy of the various trends going through it nowadays. From a rigorous return to traditional, cultural values and millennia-old symbols, to a focus on the aesthetic aspect and stylistic research, to the mixing of this form of tattoo with others, the trends are as diverse as those who practice Polynesian tattooing.
The "Best of show" prize being awarded to Tana Tokoragi, who practices an assumed mix of styles, shows the good will to open up to modernised forms of Polynesian tattoos. It’s within this connection of preservation, transmission and re-appropriation of this millenary culture that the Polynesia Tatau festival is inscribed and shines. www.facebook.com/PolynesiaTatauTattooConvention
