Maria Wronska-Friend is an anthropologist and museum curator with a particular interest in material culture studies.
Her research is object-based, using material evidence to investigate the social and historical process of contact, change and continuity on the north coast of Papua New Guinea (Aitape area) as well as the cross-cultural transfer of Indonesian textile design and technology.
Her fieldwork in the Aitape area (1986-1992) focused on the documentation of local material culture and maritime traditions. One outcome was the organisation of ethnographic collections (including seven full-size watercrafts) for the British Museum in London, Museums of Ethnography in Berlin and Dresden, as well as the National Museum in Szczecin, Poland.
Museum anthropology is another of her interests, especially issues related to the interpretation of objects and the role of the curator in negotiating their meanings. As a museum curator she has organised, in Australia and Poland, several exhibitions presenting Papua New Guinean art and material culture as well as Indonesian textiles.

Material Culture, Cultural Change, Technology, Art, Canoes, Voyaging, Museums, Textiles

Art History
Anthropology

European Society for Oceanists (ESfO)

Sandaun (Papua New Guinea)
Jawa Tengah (Indonesia)
Yogyakarta (Indonesia)
Papua New Guinea
Indonesia

Melanesia
Papua New Guinea
West Sepik (Sandaun)

The Colonial time
20th century
21st century

Tok Pisin