The upe is a tall cylinder of tightly wound pandanus leaf worn by initiates on Buka Island and in northern Bougainville through a seclusion that can run three years. The crown is dyed deep red; the pattern is undyed cream fibre worked into the weave, never painted on.

This system takes that relationship literally. Red is the field, cream is the figure, and every motif — zigzag, lattice, stepped diamond — is built from the over-under grid of interlaced strands. The typography is the ethnographic catalogue these objects are published in.