Sea of Islands brings together knowledge holders, scholars, and artists from across the Pacific with Western scholars working with Pacific collections - as well as members of diasporic Oceanic communities - to share the stories and journeys of the objects that comprise Canada's largest Oceanic collection, housed at The Museum of Anthropology at UBC.

The Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia holds some 3,500 objects from Oceania, making it the largest and most diverse collection from this region in Canada. From regalia and jewellery to backcloths and woven mats to carvings and canoes, all these items have travelled, sometimes circuitously, from their homelands - including Aotearoa, Australia, the Torres Strait Islands, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Rapa Nui, the Marquesas Islands, and Vanuatu - to the west coast of Canada. Sea of Islands traces the journeys and stories of these holdings, as shared by knowledge holders, scholars, and artists from across the Pacific.

Presented alongside more than 250 photographs of individual objects contextualized by historic and contemporary images from Oceanic communities, Carol E. Mayer's text draws on her decades of research and outreach centred around the complex intersections between museum collections, contemporary art practices, and different knowledge systems. The result is a lively and accessible exploration of how these objects - old and new - continue to articulate systems of meaning and engender new relationships.

Carol E. Mayer is Senior Curator at the Museum of Anthropology, University of British Columbia, where she is responsible for the world-wide collection of ceramics. She was awarded the National Award for Outstanding Achievement by the Canadian Museums Association for her research and curating of the permanent exhibition of European ceramics at the UBC Museum of Anthropology. She has contributed to books such as The Potter's Art, Made of Clay, and Hot Clay. Mayer was a co-founder of the Northwest Ceramics Foundation (NWCF), served as its first president and continues to serve as a board member. In 2005, her support for the makers of ceramics, particularly in British Columbia, was recognised by a Lifetime Membership Award from the Potters Guild of British Columbia.

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