Oceanic Art in The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing Fellows

Karri Vaughn is an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. She recently received her Master of Arts in textile conservation from the Fashion Institute of Technology. She has a broad range of interests within the field of fashion and textile studies and the focus of her fellowship is on non-Western mount making and conservation treatments. She previously interned at the Saint Louis Art Museum and the Textile Conservation Laboratory of the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine.

Sophia Merkin is a PhD candidate specializing in Oceanic art history at Columbia University. Her dissertation, “Collecting tapa: Indigeneity, gender, and colonial exchange in late nineteenth-century Polynesia,” identifies Indigenous agency and feminine enterprise in histories of Anglo-American collecting in the Pacific. She has received fellowships from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and the Columbia University Media Center for Art History. She holds a BA, MA, and MPhil from Columbia University and an MA with distinction from Goldsmiths, University of London. Prior to entering the doctoral program in 2016, she was a Curatorial Assistant at the Museum of Arts and Design and a Research Assistant in the Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas at Sotheby’s.

Sylvia Cockburn was awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellowship to assist with research, digital outreach, and enhancement of collections data as part of the major renovation of The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing.

Sylvia Cockburn was awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellowship to assist with research, digital outreach, and enhancement of collections data as part of the major renovation of The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing.

Kristal is the Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in Conservation (2020–2022). She is exploring the use of modular cleaning systems with rigid hydrogels to mitigate stains and environmental contaminants present on a man’s wrapper from the Bondoukou Region of Côte d’Ivoire and is also participating in the de-installation of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing in preparation for its renovation. She received her MA from the Bern University of Applied Sciences and the Abegg-Stiftung in 2019. She was awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Conservation Fellowship to gain experience in the study and treatment of textiles from Africa, Oceania, and the Americas in the context of a museum conservation department.

Elizabeth Cory-Pearce was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship to foster a cross-cultural reconceptualization of the category “portraiture,” posited as “forms that evoke presence,” using examples drawn from Oceanic and European art.

Kristal Hale was awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Conservation Fellowship to gain experience in the study and treatment of textiles from Africa, Oceania, and the Americas in the context of a museum conservation department.

Elizabeth Cory-Pearce was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship to develop a book manuscript tracing the emergence of markets for Maori art in Rotorua, Aotearoa/New Zealand, documenting Te Arawa Māori pieces in museums as a globally dispersed “collective oeuvre,” and reorienting perceptions of indigenous art.

Alapati Refiti was awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship to research the idealization and conceptualization in planning, curating and exhibition of Pacific artefacts within museums and institutional architectural spaces.

Philippe Peltier was awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship to research the networks of collectors, dealers, and gallerists specializing in the art of the Pacific who formed the Museum of Primitive Art, the collection of which is now housed at The Met.

Sergio Jarillo de la Torre was awarded The Sylvan C. Coleman and Pam Coleman Memorial Fund Fellowship to document and to extend catalogue records, and to build an analysis of Massim art from Papua New Guinea, one of the Pacific’s most dynamic artistic traditions.

Jessica Walthew was awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Conservation Fellowship to research the intersection of the conservation of textiles and objects.