Sea of Islands

Exploring Objects, Stories and Memories from Oceania
*Winner of the 2026 Basil Stuart-Stubbs Prize for Outstanding Scholarly Book on British Columbia*

Sea of Islands brings together knowledge holders, scholars, and artists from across the Pacific with Western scholars working with Pacific collections—as well as members of diasporic Oceanic communities—to share the stories and journeys of the objects that comprise Canada’s largest Oceanic collection, housed at The Museum of Anthropology at UBC.

The Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia holds some 3,500 objects from Oceania, making it the largest and most diverse collection from this region in Canada. From regalia and jewellery to barkcloths and woven mats to carvings and canoes, all these items 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 holdings, as shared by knowledge holders, scholars, and artists from across the Pacific.

Presented alongside more than 250 photographs of individual objects contextualized by historic and contemporary images from Oceanic communities, Carol E. Mayer’s text draws on her decades of research and outreach centred around 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.

Contributor: Ralph Regenvanu (Foreword by), Susan Rowley (Preface by)

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