Dr Sylvia Cockburn

Sylvia Cockburn is a curator and art historian with research focus in contemporary Pacific art, community engagement and collaborative practice in museums. Born in Canberra, Australia, Sylvia joined the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing in 2022 as an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow. She holds an MA and a PhD from the Sainsbury Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, where her research focused on collaborations between contemporary Pacific artists and ethnographic museums in Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand and the United Kingdom. She has previously held curatorial roles working with Pacific collections at Queensland Museum in Brisbane and Museums Victoria, Melbourne. Before coming to The Met, she worked as Curator of Art at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.