O'Brien, Aoife

Aoife O’Brien received her Ph.D. in Anthropology/Art History from the Sainsbury Research Unit for the Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas at the University of East Anglia in England in 2011. Her doctoral research focused on material culture from the Solomon Islands in the early colonial period. Her research interests include ethnography, visual anthropology, museum anthropology, Pacific Island studies, and cultural encounters. She has previously worked for the National Museum of Ireland and recently she held an appointment as a Senior Research Fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In the spring of 2015 and 2016 she taught new courses for the Department of Art History and Archaeology. A lecture course titled “Introduction to the Arts of Oceania” was taught both years. In 2015 an advanced seminar titled “Power, Authority and Spirituality in Oceanic Art” was offered, with a Freshman Seminar entitled “Understanding Oceanic Art" taught the following year. She will return to Washington University in spring 2017 to repeat the course “Introduction to the Arts of Oceania” as well as another new Freshman seminar, “Imagining the Pacific: from Captain Cook to Disney’s Moana.” These courses represent the first time the Department has been able to offer courses in this exciting area, so well represented by distinguished local collections at our neighboring institution, The Saint Louis Museum.

Dr. O'Brien's fellowship is shared with the Saint Louis Art Museum. During her tenure at Washington University, she is the Korff Postdoctoral Fellow in Oceanic Art; while working on her appointment at the Saint Louis Art Museum, she is the Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Oceanic Art. In fall 2014, Dr. O'Brien assisted with the exhibition Atua: sacred gods from Polynesia as well as undertaking research on the museum's Oceanic collections. Dr. O'Brien is continuing research on the museum’s Oceanic collections as well as preparing for a rotation of Polynesian objects in a new exhibition space. She is further preparing a temporary installation focusing on bird feather and bone objects from the Pacific, due to open in December 2016. This will provide an important expansion of the museum’s permanent display of Oceanic Art. (https://arthistory.artsci.wustl.edu/people/aoife-obrien, read 2017-10-09)