Gordon H Brown Lecture: Dr Maia Nuku

Join us to hear Dr Maia Nuku (Ngāi Tai) deliver the annual Gordon H Brown Lecture, hosted in collaboration with Victoria University and the Adam Art Gallery. Nuku is the Evelyn A. J. Hall and John A. Friede Curator for Oceanic Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

What is the role and relevancy of museums in the 21st century? Are they living, expansive archives of Indigenous knowledge? Or outdated relics of colonial pasts.

The complete overhaul and construction of new galleries for the Arts of Oceania at The Metropolitan Museum in New York gave curator Maia Nuku a unique opportunity to reframe the galleries conceptually; to emphasize connectivity in the context of global and local histories; and elevate the equally critical arts of storytelling, oratory, and performance alongside Oceania’s dynamic visual arts. Curator Maia Nuku shares insights into the 10-year project that has culminated in a suite of galleries that offer international visitors perspectives on art that reach deep into Oceania’s past while also acknowledging ongoing manifestations of its agency in the present.

Photo courtesy of Dr Maia Nuku

About Maia Nuku

Born in London of English and Māori (Ngai Tai) descent, Dr. Maia Nuku is Curator for the Arts of Oceania at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. She completed two post-doctoral fellowships at the University of Cambridge (2008-2014) as part of an international research team exploring Oceanic art collections in European museums in France, Spain, the Netherlands and Russia. Researching the collections alongside Pacific artists and practitioners, the work was collaborative and sought to create access to these collections both in the physical and digital domains. During her time at the Met, Maia has evolved a curatorial approach that centers indigenous Pacific perspectives, grounding the presentation of visual arts in the unique conceptual and cosmological connections that make art from Oceania so compelling. In 2023, her exhibition The Shape of Time: Art and Ancestors of Oceania travelled to Museum of Art in Pudong, Shanghai (June 1 - Aug 20, 2023) and National Museum of Qatar (Oct 23, 2023 - Jan 15, 2024).  For the past eight years, Maia has overseen a major reinstallation of the Oceania galleries at the Metropolitan Museum which showcases the creativity of indigenous Pacific artists from the 18th century to the present through the compelling lenses of global history, indigenous storytelling, and Pacific oratory and performance.

Installation view of the Arts of Oceania Met Museum of Art New York. Photo by Bruce Schwarz