Sea of Islands: Exploring Objects, Stories, and Memories from Oceania is about journeys, stories, and memories that circulate through and around some of the cultural belongings from Oceania currently at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. The collection includes some 3,500 belongings from most regions of Oceania, a sea of islands that covers about one third of the world.
Originally, my intention was to write a book about the total collection. What was I thinking? Even though every island in the Pacific deserves its own book (that is a challenge for future writers!), clearly it was necessary for me to rethink my approach. I decided to concentrate on those areas of the collection that had stories to tell, that I had researched and/or co-activated through exhibitions, teaching, and publications. The result was a collaboration that grew from conversations and relationships with friends and colleagues—people I have been privileged to meet and spend time with over the past twenty-five years. Some live, work, and play in Oceania, some are embers of the diaspora in British Columbia, and others are researchers in museums with Pacific collections.
Balangut, by a New Guinean maker, collected 1895–1927. MOA Collection C924 (Burnett Collection). Photo by Kyla Bailey.
The Museum of Anthropology is connected to this vast sea of islands through its commitment to working collaboratively with artists, knowledge holders, and cultural institutions in the Pacific Northwest and, now, across the Pacific. This book offered an opportunity to work with these collaborators in shaping how we might communicate information about their belongings and their cultural lives. There has always been a dialogue between Pacific Islanders and the world beyond their shores. Gathering together the model canoes and barkcloth presented an opportunity to disassemble preconceptions of isolation and to tell a Pacific story about renewal, continuity of respect, and practice handed on.
The past few years have seen a revival in canoe making, and these oft-ignored inanimate models are now viewed by Pacific Islanders as templates for contemporary full-size canoes that, when built, will require only the wind to move them from island to island, leaving the gas-reliant runabouts stranded on the beach. Participants brought together barkcloths from different times and places: the effect was as though the cloths had met each other, told their stories of loss and revival, and shared their similarities and differences. Who could have predicted that, one day, women would walk the runways of Paris and New York wearing designer clothes created from barkcloth and bilum fibre? The objects that were chosen show that contemporary artists constantly appropriate new experiences and realities and incorporate them into their repertoire of creative expression.
Book spread from Sea of Islands, Figure 1 Publishing. (L) Nguzunguzu, a canoe prow figure by a Solomon Islands maker, collected 1909. MOA Collection C1045 (Burnett Collection). (R) Nguzunguzu, a canoe prow figure by a Solomon Island maker, collected 1909. MOA Collection C361 (Burnett Collection).
Pacific Islanders living in British Columbia chose objects that, they believed, had cultural and historical value: items no longer used, but not use-less. Such objects continue to be a link to the past—perhaps even to a safe place, free of the uncomfortable complexities of contemporary life. The Islanders infused the objects chosen for inclusion in this book with stories, laughter, and memories of a long-ago childhood. Knowledge holders want people to know about their culture and how it is being eroded. Some view objects as indicators of cultural, social, or religious practices, or as the artistic products of individuals in a specific cultural and historical context. Some view the perseverance of traditional practice, such as sculpting and mask making, as a form of resistance. Stories that lie at the heart of much of cultural survival are embedded in the iconography of many of the works. Artists are challenged to know and understand their communities’ belief systems and associated rituals, and thereby avoid having their work become mere imitation. Many are faced with an uncertain future.
For Pacific Islanders today, finding a balance between the guise of opportunities and development and maintaining a unique way of life remains a daunting challenge. Some artists have chosen to keep to traditional forms, while others have chosen to bring attention to the numerous challenges that are threatening the environment and changing cultural life and general well-being.
On the world stage, Pacific Islanders have fought against the proliferation of transboundary waste in their oceans and have lobbied to have the use of plastic banned commentators in this book, have been gathering up discarded plastic from the oceans and metal from land-based garbage dumps and recycling this refuse into sculptural works with a dual function: as saleable art and as part of the vanguard of protest against global pollution. How effective is this approach? Will politically shy museums and galleries displaying these works become actively critical of harmful mining activities, the spread of hiv/aids, the importing of cheap goods, climate change, deep-sea mining, encroachment by overseas developers, and migration from villages to urban environments? Are the contributors to this book suggesting that museums have a more active role to play? Photographs are always compelling. A few of those presented in this book serve to chronicle Frank Burnett’s colonial encounters. Others are of friends and colleagues I have had the privilege to know for many years.
The remainder are of chosen cultural objects that have been beautifully rendered by the camera. All of these photographs are not just of something. They also give us something to think about; they serve as active agents in the recording and constructing of memories and stories. They will have different resonances and different meanings in diverse historical and cultural settings. They can be viewed as sites of discourse and interaction, with potential to question, arouse curiosity, and introduce different ways of seeing and telling. They illustrate what knowledge holders want you to know and understand about their homelands. They exist in this time and place. They invite you to participate in the conversation and continue the journey.
Sea of Islands is available for purchase in the MOA Shop.
Carol E. Mayer is the Research Fellow—Pacific at the Museum of Anthropology at UBC. Internationally known for her work as a museum curator, she has published widely on museum-related topics, curated more than forty exhibitions, and received fellowships from the Smithsonian Institution and the Sainsbury Research Unit and numerous awards including from the Canadian Museums Association, the International Council of Museums (ICOM) Canada, and the British Columbia Museums Association. She has also received a medal from the Republic of Vanuatu for her cultural contributions, and the Manu Daula Award from the Pacific Arts Association for her outstanding achievement and dedication in the arts of the Pacific.
Excerpted from Sea of Islands: Exploring Objects, Stories, and Memories from Oceania by Carol E. Mayer. Copyright 2025. Text copyright by individual contributors. Excerpted with permission from Figure 1 Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Banner image: Four Great Whites (print), by Ake Lianga, 2004. Victoria, British Columbia. MOA Collection 2938/2.