- Events
- Early printing in the Pacific Islands
Postponed
Early printing in the Pacific Islands
Part of Connecting to collections 2022 series
Tuesday 19 July 2022, 12pm to 1pm
Online — Zoom
Free
This talk by Suliana Vea, Geraldine Warren and Anthony Tedeschi will explore the history of printing in the Pacific region. They will delve into the Turnbull Library’s rich holdings and show some of the earliest printed texts, with a special focus on the use of tapa as a printing substrate.
Event postponed
Unfortunately this event has been postponed.
Early Pacific texts from the Turnbull Library collection
Although printing first occurred within the broader Pacific region as early as the seventh century in China and by the sixteenth century in Mexico and Peru, it was not until the nineteenth century that the first printing presses arrived in the South Pacific Islands with the coming of various Christian missionary societies.
This talk by Turnbull Library staff members Geraldine Warren, Anthony Tedeschi and Suliana Vea will cover the arrival of some of these societies in the South Pacific as background to the establishment of the first presses in Tahiti, Tonga, Samoa and other islands.
They will then delve into the Turnbull Library’s rich holdings and show some original specimens of the earliest texts that were printed, with a special focus towards the end on the use of tapa as a printing substrate using further examples from the collections.
About the speakers
Anthony Tedeschi has been with the Turnbull as Curator Rare Books & Fine Printing since 2015. He holds advanced degrees in English Literature and Library Science, with a specialisation in rare books librarianship, and has published on various aspects of book history. He was awarded a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellowship to undertake research overseas into the book-collecting practices of Alexander Turnbull, whose bequest just over 100 years ago and continuing legacy have been celebrated during ATL100.
Suliana Vea is the Research Librarian Pacific at the Alexander Turnbull Library. Born and bred in Wellington, she is of Tongan descent with ties to Ha'apai, Kolomotu'a and the West side of Tongatapu.
Geraldine Warren has been the New Zealand and Pacific Curator at the Alexander Turnbull library since October 2021. She holds a MLIS (2006) and MCW (2019) from VUW, Wellington and was part of the Te Papa Tupu programme established by the Māori Literature Trust in 2020.
Register for a link to join this talk
This event will be delivered using Zoom. You do not need to install the software in order to attend, you can opt to run zoom from your browser.
Register if you’d like to join this talk and we'll send you the link to use on the day.
Safety measures when you come to the event
Find out about what you need to do when you visit the National Library Wellington for the event.
Safety measures in place for visiting the Library
Stay home if you are sick or feel unwell.
Check before you come
Due to COVID-19 some of our events can be cancelled or postponed at very short notice. Please check the website for updated information about individual events before you come.
For more general information about National Library services and exhibitions have look at our COVID-19 page.
Previous talks
Have a look at some of the previous talks in this series.
Connecting to collections 2021
Connecting to collections 2022
Newspaper page 'The Cook Island Gazette', 1 August 1906, printed on tapa cloth. Ref:45057771. Alexander Turnbull Library.