Dr. Karen Jacobs
Lecturer in the Arts of the Pacific
SRU Phd 2003
BA (1996); MA Art history (non-western art) (1998), University of Ghent, Belgium; MA ‘Advanced studies in the arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas’ (2000), Sainsbury Research Unit, University of East Anglia; PhD Art and Anthropology (2004), University of East Anglia; Post-doctoral research associate, University of East Anglia (2005-2009)
General Research Interests
Collecting and history of collections, representation and museum ethnography, auctions and the art market, cultural festivals, politics of clothing, contemporary Pacific art
Current Research
Karen Jacobs’ research in the Kamoro region in West Papua focuses broadly on the dynamic processes by which persons and objects are interrelated. More specifically it focuses on cross-cultural encounters to expose the diversity of ways in which Kamoro culture has been communicated and constituted through the analysis of cultural representation. Particular emphasis is given to the creative and pragmatic adaptation by the Kamoro people to different forms of contact. The annual Kamoro Arts Festival, a forum for public relations, self-representation and cultural politics in a politically delicate climate, was subject of fieldwork in West Papua (2000, 2001, 2002, and 2005). Subsequent fieldwork in Papua focused on recent collecting encounters (2011).
She is currently co-investigator in the AHRC-funded research project Fijian Art: political power, sacred value, social transformation and collecting since the 18th century, a collaborative 3-year project that aims to unlock the potential of the outstanding collections of Fijian art, material culture and associated photographs and archives held in museums in the United Kingdom and abroad.
She also conducts research on collections assembled by the London Missionary Society in Polynesia in the early 19th century. This research stems out of the AHRC-sponsored research project 'Polynesian Visual Arts: meanings and histories in Pacific and European cultural contexts'.
Exhibition projects
Most recently she co-curated with Prof Steven Hooper the exhibition Polynésie: arts et divinités 1760-1860 at the Musée du quai Branly, Paris (17 Jun – 14 Sep 2008). This is the French version of Pacific Encounters: art and divinity in Polynesia 1760-1860, shown at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia, Norwich (20 May – 13 Aug 2006). Connected to the exhibition was a symposium Exhibiting Polynesia: past, present and future (17-18 June 2008) which linked in with her own research.
She also worked as the research associate on the ‘Pacific Encounters’ exhibition and its associated AHRC-sponsored research project ‘Polynesian Visual Arts: meanings and histories in Pacific and European cultural contexts’.
While doing PhD research, she acted as a consultant for the exhibition Papua lives! Meet the Kamoro, which was part of a research project at the National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden, The Netherlands (2000-2003).
Kamoro arriving at the 2001 Kamoro Arts Festival. Photo: Karen Jacobs
Selected Publications
2011. Jacobs, K. “Transacting Creations: the Kamoro Arts Festival (1998-2006) in Papua.” The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 12(4): 363-382.
2010 [in press]. ‘Beaten drums: a Kamoro carver’s perspective’, in L. Bolton et al. (eds.), Melanesia: Art and Encounter. London: British Museum Press.
2009. Editor. Encounters with Polynesia. Exhibiting the past in the present, special issue of The Journal of Museum Ethnography, no. 21.
2009. ‘Artists in residence: Polynesian engagement with the past’, in K. Jacobs (ed.), Encounters with Polynesia. Exhibiting the past in the present, special issue of The Journal of Museum Ethnography 21: 112-126.
2008. ‘United Colors of Papua’: Kamoro arts and cultural appropriation’, in J. Harris (ed.), Identity theft. Cultural colonisation, contemporary art, pp. 175-96. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.
2008. ‘Kunst van Polynesië/Art de la Polynésie’, in F. Herreman (ed.), Oceanië/Océanie, pp. 123-41. Brussel: Mercatorfonds.
2007. ‘Kamoro Kakuru: the Kamoro Festival in Pigapu village, Papua’, in K. Stevenson & V. Lee-Webb (eds.), Re-presenting Pacific Art, pp. 91-110. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.
2006. ‘Collectors, dealers and institutions’, in S. Hooper, Pacific Encounters. Art and divinity in Polynesia 1760-1860, pp. 270-74. London: British Museum Press.
2003. ‘Catholic mission and Kamoro culture’, in D. Smidt (ed.), Kamoro art. Tradition and innovation in a New Guinea culture, pp. 62-65. Amsterdam: KIT Publishers.
2003. ‘Kamoro Arts Festival.’ in D. Smidt (ed.), Kamoro art. Tradition and innovation in a New Guinea culture, pp. 66-71. Amsterdam: KIT Publishers.
2000. ‘Kamoro collection: catalogue entries.’ Digital Publication (www.rmv.nl).
Paris exhibition
The exhibition, Polynésie: arts et divinités 1760-1860, co-curated by Steven Hooper and Karen Jacobs at the Musée du quai Branly in Paris, closed on Sunday 14 September 2008 with a ritual led by UK-based Polynesians Rosanna Raymond, Maia Jessop and George Nuku, and by members of the French Polynesian community in Paris. After a circuit of the exhibition, a poem by Rosanna Raymond and celebratory dances by the French Polynesians, a plexiglass hei tiki (neck ornament) made by the artist George Nuku was presented to the Musée du quai Branly to embody the continuing link between the museum and the descendants of the artists who had made the historical treasures featured in the exhibition. The Delegation Polynésie Française afterwards hosted a reception for visiting Polynesians and all those involved in the making of the exhibition, attended by Sarah Dennis, New Zealand ambassador to France.
Karen Jacobs during the installation of the exhibition ‘Polynésie: Arts et divinités 1760-1860’. Photo: Wonu Fanny Veys.