NORWICH.- The Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia, Norwich presents the exhibit Pacific Encounters: Art and Divinity in Polynesia 1760-1860 through 13 August 2006.

The Sainsbury Centre reopens after refurbishment with the most comprehensive exhibition of Polynesian art ever assembled. The exhibition celebrates the wonder and excitement of the people and objects encountered by explorers such as Cook, Bligh and Vancouver on their pioneering voyages across the Pacific during the 18th and 19th centuries.

On display are magnificent feather capes and tiny fishhooks. Some of the material shown was made to be exchanged between intermarrying families, some to be presented to local chiefs or European visitors. The pieces reflect a century of great change for Pacific islanders, as European explorers and missionaries introduced new materials and a new religion to the region.

The exhibition is one outcome of an AHRC-funded research project Polynesian Visual Arts: Meanings and Histories in Pacific and European Cultural Contexts. It is a British Museum Partnership UK project, with many of the objects loaned from the British Museum collection. The exhibition is accompanied by a series of talks and events, and a book by Dr Steven Hooper, published by the British Museum Press.