New book Sea of Islands showcases UBC Museum of Anthropology's Oceanic collection
Release by Figure 1 Publishing and MOA features more than 250 photographs alongside text by museum curator Carol E. Mayer
SPONSORED POST BY Figure 1 Publishing
Photo featured in Sea of Islands: Exploring Objects, Stories, and Memories from Oceania.
Sea of Islands: Exploring Objects, Stories, and Memories from Oceania brings together knowledge holders, scholars, and artists from across the Pacific. In her new book, Carol E. Mayer, Research Fellow—Pacific at the Museum of Anthropology at UBC, shares the stories and journeys of the objects that comprise Canada’s largest Oceanic collection, housed at MOA.
MOA holds some 3,500 objects from Oceania, making it the largest and most diverse collection from this region in Canada. Regalia, jewellery, bark cloths, woven mats, carvings, canoes, and other objects have travelled, sometimes circuitously, from their homelands—including Aotearoa, Australia, the Torres Strait Islands, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Rapa Nui, the Marquesas Islands, and Vanuatu—to the West Coast of Canada. Sea of Islands traces the journeys and stories of these items.
Sea of Islands: Exploring Objects, Stories, and Memories from Oceania.
Presented alongside more than 250 photographs of individual objects contextualized by historic and contemporary images from Oceanic communities, Mayer’s text draws on her decades of research on the complex intersections between museum collections, contemporary art practices, and different knowledge systems. The result is a lively and accessible exploration of how these objects—old and new—continue to articulate systems of meaning and engender new relationships.
Mayer has curated more than 40 museum exhibitions and is known internationally for her work.
Sea of Islands is available online and locally in stores where books are sold. For more information, visit Figure 1 Publishing.
Post sponsored by Figure 1 Publishing.
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