Dr. Maia Nuku

Dr. Maia Nuku, of English and Māori (Ngai Tai) descent, is Curator for the Arts of Oceania at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Her doctoral research focused on 18th century collections of Polynesian art and she completed two post-doctoral fellowships at Cambridge University (2008-2014) in England as part of an international research team exploring Oceanic art collections in European institutions (France, Spain, the Netherlands and Russia). This collaborative work alongside Pacific artists, practitioners and scholars 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 from Oceania in the unique cosmological connections that make art from the region so compelling. Her most recent exhibition Atea: Nature and Divinity in Polynesian Art (2018-2019) explored the close material and genealogical relationships that bind Polynesian islanders with the natural world. She is currently working on a major reinstallation of the Oceania galleries that will reimagine the collection for 21st century audiences and animate the galleries with Pacific voices.