Maia Jessop
SRU Phd 2007
Research interests
Visual anthropology, film & photography; anthropology of art, Pacific material culture and history; contemporary Polynesian visual arts, film & literature.
My PhD research aimed to analyse the material construction of a body of wooden, feather and fibre objects collected from Tahiti and the Austral and Cook Islands by the London Missionary Society during the 19th century.
Combining museum-based collections work alongside collaborative fieldwork in the region, I established a set of contemporary frameworks for understanding these objects, thereby enabling an assessment of their meaning and significance for Pacific islanders today.
Maia Jessop