Tui Emma Gillies and Sulieti Fieme’a Burrows are Tongan New Zealand artists who preserve their family’s ancestral DNA through the sacred ritual of tapa making. Their work mixes contemporary with traditional and can be challenging and controversial, but always with respect to the ancestral roots of the medium. In 2018 Tui and Sulieti received the Creative New Zealand Pacific Heritage Art Award. Their works can be found in museum and gallery collections around the globe, including America, Germany, Tahiti, Melbourne, China, and in many private collections. Tui and Sulieti also helped revive tapa art in their home village of Falevai, Vava’u where it had vanished decades earlier.