Offering a fresh look at Oceanic art that incorporates new scholarship
and perspectives from Indigenous voices, this book is an essential
resource on the diverse nations and communities of the Pacific Islands
Made up of the multiple island communities contained within Australasia,
Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia, Oceania is known for works of art
and ritual objects that tell a wealth of stories about origins,
ancestral power, performance, and initiation. Diverging from the
traditional approaches that categorize Oceanic art by region, this book
considers the connections between all Austronesian-speaking peoples,
whose ancestral homes span Southeast Asia, Australia, Papua New Guinea,
and the island archipelagoes of the North and East Pacific. A focus on
the objects themselves--from elaborately carved ancestral figures in
ceremonial houses to ritual regalia such as towering slit drums, skull
reliquaries, and dazzling turtle-shell masks--provides an intimate look
at Oceania as a whole with support from multidisciplinary research in
art history, ethnography, and archaeology. Underscoring the powerful
interplay between the ocean, the land, and the spiritual and ancestral
realms, The Shape of Time illuminates the great artistic achievements
of Pacific Islanders across hundreds of years through insightful new
scholarship, stunning photography, and Indigenous perspectives.
Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale
University Press
Exhibition Schedule:
Museum of Art Pudong, Shanghai
(May 31-August 20, 2023)
National Museum of Qatar, Doha
(October 16, 2023-January 15, 2024)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
(Fall 2024)
