Pacific Presences - Volume 2

Lucie Carreau is a researcher based at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA), University of Cambridge. Educated at the École du Louvre (Paris) and Sainsbury Research Unit (Norwich), her work focuses on the history of collecting and collections in the19th century and early 20th century and the role of objects in mediating relationships between Pacific Islanders and European visitors.Dr. Alison Clark is a Research Associate at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge. Both her masters (2007) and PhD (2013) theses were on the Indigenous Australian collections at the British Museum. Her current research is focused on Kiribati, where she is interested in the contemporary resonance of historic museum collections, and the revival of certain cultural practices. She has previously worked on projects at the British Museum, and the October Gallery in London.Alana Jelinek is a practising artist, exhibiting nationally and internationally for over 25 years. She works in a wide range of media, including participatory, film, sound, novel-writing and painting. From 2009 until 2017 she worked with the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, first as Arts and Humanities Research Fellow (2009-2014) and then as Senior Researcher for Pacific Presences (2013-2018), making site-specific work and responding to the collections and their histories in order to explore legacies of colonialism.Erna Lilje pursues the idea that collections can reveal more about the people who made and used the artefacts they hold by bringing to bear an interdisciplinary approach that combines a close examination of these with field-based research. She believes that the most quotidian objects can offer insights into the lives of those people least represented in historical sources, such as women. Erna's interest in the physicality of artefacts, and the processes used to make them, stems from her art practice and her focus on Papua New Guinea has foundations in her own heritage.Prof. dr. Nicholas Thomas did doctoral research in the Marquesas Islands and has since written extensively on exploration and cross-cultural encounters and on art histories in the Pacific. He has been Director of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge since 2006.

Hundreds of thousands of works of art and artefacts from many parts of the Pacific are dispersed across European museums. They range from seemingly quotidian things such as fish-hooks and baskets to great sculptures of divinities, architectural forms and canoes. These collections constitute a remarkable resource for understanding history and society across Oceania, cross-cultural encounters since the voyages of Captain Cook, and the colonial transformations that have taken place since. They are also collections of profound importance for Islanders today, who have varied responses to their displaced heritage, and renewed interest in ancestral forms and practices. This two-volume book enlarges understandings of Oceanic art and enables new reflection upon museums and ways of working in and around them. In dialogue with Islanders' perspectives, It exemplifies a growing commitment on the part of scholars and curators to work collaboratively and responsively. Volume II illustrates the sheer variety of Pacific artefacts and histories in museums, and similarly the heterogeneity of the issues and opportunities that they raise. Over thirty essays explore materialities, collection histories, legacies of empire, and contemporary projects. ContentsPreface IntroductionPart one: Materialities1. Fibre Skirts: Continuity and ChangeErna Lilje2. Tangible Diversity: Shell Money from the Bismarck ArchipelagoKatherine Szabo3. Aitutaki Patterns or Listening to the Voices of the Ancestors: Research on Aitutaki ta'unga in European MuseumsMichaela Appel and Ngaa Kitai Taria Pureariki4. Unpacking cosmologies: frigate bird and turtle shell headdresses in NauruMaia Nuku5. Reaching across the Ocean': Presences of barkcloth in Oceania and beyondAnna-Karina Hermkens6. 'U'u: an unfinished inquiry into the history and adornment of Marquesan clubsNicholas ThomasPart two: Collection histories and exhibitions7. Haphazard Histories: Tracing Kanak Collections in UK MuseumsJulie Adams8. Inaccuracies, inconsistencies and implications: Researching Kiribati coconut fibre armour in UK collectionsPolly Bence9. Two Germanies: Ethnographic Museums, (Post)colonial Exhibitions, and the 'Cold Odyssey' of Pacific Objects between East and WestPhilipp Schorch10. Museum Dreams: The Rise and Fall of a 'Port-Vila MuseumPeter Brunt11. From Russia with Love: Nikolai Miklouho-Maclay's Pacific collectionsElena Govor12. Collecting procedure unknown: contextualising the Max Biermann collection in the Museum Fünf Kontinente in MunichHilke Thode-Arora13. Made to measure: Photographs from the Templeton Crocker expeditionLucie Carreau14. German women collectors in the Pacific: Elizabeth Krämer-Bannow and Antonie BrandeisAmiria Salmond15. Work on paper: The illustration of customary life in Oceanic artNicholas ThomasPart three: Legacies of Empire16. Kings, Rangatira and Relationships: the enduring meanings of 'treasure' exchanges between Maori and Europeans in 1830s WhangaroaDeidre Brown17. History and Cultural Identity: Commemorating the arrival of the British in KiribatiAlison Clark18. Willful amnesia? Contemporary Dutch narratives about western New GuineaFanny Wonu Veys19. A glimmering presence: the unheard Melanesian voices of St Barnabas Memorial Chapel, Norfolk IslandLucie Carreau20. The church at Titikaveka: a Rarotongan barkcloth from the 1840sNicholas Thomas21. 'The woman who walks' Lucy Evelyn Cheesman and her collection from western New Guinea at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, CambridgeKatharina Haslwanter22. An early ngatu tahina in StockholmNicholas Thomas23. Makereti and the Pitt Rivers Museum, 1921-1930, and BeyondNgahuia Te Awekotuku and Jeremy Coote