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.
Sea of shells
Sea of shells