Hang Tight: Using Digital Aids to Mount a Pātaka Whakairo

This presentation will focus on the use of digital techniques to aid in the mounting of a Māori Pātaka. During the planning of our current show at Bishop Museum, Ka ʻUla Wena: Oceanic Red, it was requested that the five panels that made up the front wall of this food storage house be mounted on a wall at an elevation that would be representative of when it was whole. This presented several challenges. Along with this, I would be working on mounts for over 80 other objects. I was working with limited space, and it was impractical to view all 5 panels arranged together while working on the mount, especially on a vertical surface. My solution was to take high resolution 3D scans of the individual parts and assemble the display in CAD. From there I could design mounts to be 3D printed and cast in epoxy paste. After much trial and error, the final mount was comprised of printed PETG receivers and carbon fiber capture shells formed on printed molds. During the installation the CAD model delivered once again. The mounts and all 5 panels had still not all been together at the same time, so I had no template for where the receivers needed to go. From the model I was able to have a full-size template printed on our large format plotter. On the day of installation everything went together with a perfect fit. I recognize that this technology is not a cure-all solution to mount making, but in the right situation it can be a versatile tool in the design of shows and fabrication of mounts.