Sea of Shells
Christer Lindberg, born 1956, is Professor of Social Anthropology at Lund University, Sweden,
and Associate Professor of the History of Religion at Åbo Akademi University, Finland. He is
also a skilled photographer whose work has been exhibited in museums and galleries. He has
published three photographic books previously: Paris Serenade (2009), Fascination (2013),
and The Green Heart – Impressions from the Lund University Botanical Garden (2012), the
latter in collaboration with his friend and colleague, Thomas Malm.
Thomas Malm, born 1960, is a biologist and anthropologist, and Professor of Human Ecology
at Lund University, Sweden. He has travelled widely in Oceania – his ‘Sea of Shells’ – since
1983. It was during fieldwork there that he amassed the bulk of shells shown in this book.
His award-winning dissertation, Shell Age Economics – Marine Gathering in the Kingdom of
Tonga, Polynesia (1999), was the first monograph about the cultural significance of marine
invertebrates in the Pacific islands.