All Essays
Oceanic Art in The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing
Throughout Island Southeast Asia, skilled artisans craft textiles that weave together identity, ancestry, harmony, and cosmology.
Sylvia Cockburn
January 5
In Solomon Islands, personal adornment conveys status, transforms the body, enhances ancestral communication, and protects the wearer.
Sylvia Cockburn
December 18, 2025
The rich sculptural, architectural, and textile traditions of the Toba Batak in northern Sumatra have served, for generations, as potent tools for harnessing spiritual power that was central to religious and social life before Christianity was introduced in the nineteenth century.
Maggie Wander
July 1, 2023
The Asmat believe that there is a close relationship between humans and trees, and recognize wood as the source of life.
Emily Caglayan Ph. D.
October 1, 2004
The art of New Ireland traditionally centered on mortuary ceremonies and feasts to honor the dead.
Emily Caglayan Ph. D.
October 1, 2004
The most powerful members of a Batak community are ritual specialists, known as datu.
Emily Caglayan Ph. D.
October 1, 2004
The art of the Solomon Islands is characterized by its intricate designs which utilize inlays of pearl shell.
Emily Caglayan Ph. D.
October 1, 2004
Much of the European exploration of the Pacific was inspired by two obsessions, the search for the fastest routes to the spice-rich islands of the Moluccas as well as the theory that somewhere in the South Pacific lay a vast undiscovered southern continent.
Eric Kjellgren
October 1, 2004
Kanak art has traditionally focused on propagating the status and importance of high-ranking chiefs.
Emily Caglayan Ph. D.
October 1, 2004
Despite the fact that the islands are scattered across 8 million square kilometers of ocean, a distinctive Micronesian style does exist.
Emily Caglayan Ph. D.
October 1, 2004