Sean Mooney is Managing Director and Chief Curator for the Rock Foundation, one of the largest private collections of Indigenous arts in the world (200,000+ inventory), focused primarily on Haudenosaunee and Arctic cultures. Sean is formerly Curator of the Edmund Carpenter Collection of Arctic Art at The Menil Collection, Houston, and formerly Director of Exhibition Design at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museums. From 2000 to 2013, Sean directed SMAK Projects, a New York-based exhibitions consultancy he co-founded, that organized and produced museum exhibitions worldwide. In a museum career spanning over 35 years, Sean has produced more than 200 exhibitions globally. Highlights of Sean's museum practice includes the development of two new museum buildings for the state of Qatar, an installation for the Berlage Institute at the Venice Biennale; design collaboration for the Clinton Presidential Library; development of the Rubin Museum of Art; and exhibition programs in the Bering Peninsula of Alaska, fostering cultural sustainability projects throughout the region.
Sean is a Rome Prize Fellow in collaboration with artist and dancer Chuna McIntyre (Central Yup’ik). They have worked together for over 20 years, recently co-curating two exhibitions for the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona: Yua: Henri Matisse and the Inner Arctic Spirit, (2018); and Substance of Stars, (2022). They have also collaborated on the exhibitions Microcosmos: Details from the Carpenter Collection of Arctic Art, at The Menil Collection, Houston, (2015); and Upside Down: Arctic Realities, at the Musée du Quai Branly, Paris in (2008; reconstructed for The Menil Collection in 2010).
How has your time in Rome shaped or shifted the direction of your project so far?
Coming to Rome was instigated by an invitation from the Museo Etnologico of the Vatican Museums, which asked Chuna and I to come to study seven Yup’ik dance masks, and other Alaska Native materials in their collection. The goal was to provide Indigenous analyses of the masks, offering associated stories and interpretive information that would allow them to update their displays and conservation of these cultural materials. It is also the 100th anniversary of this collection, which was assembled in 1925 at the request of Pope Pius XI for the Jubilee that year. Being in Rome in this particular Jubilee year of 2025, which coincides with the election of a new, American Pope, Leo XIV, has made the occasion all the more poignant. Although we have worked “behind the scenes” in museums for many years, we could not have anticipated how thrilling this access has been. Not to mention the extraordinary pleasure it is to wake up in the dreamlike environment of Rome itself each day.
What part of your daily routine or environment at the Academy has most influenced you and your work?
It took about a month to fully accept that we are living in this incredible place, and not in an alternate universe somewhere, dreaming. I’m sure my colleagues have all mentioned the pleasure of being served lovely communal meals together (how spoiled we have gotten!), and how wonderful this is for inspiring their work. But, I never expected that I would have use of this beautiful, enormous studio which has a grand piano in it. Who knew that being in Rome would revive my long-lost music career? I find myself playing piano daily, as a welcome distraction from writing, museum research, video documentation, and all the “real” reasons for being here. I am planning to give a private “farewell recital” for my Academy friends before I leave. Also, I have come to realize that some of the best “research” has come about in the oddest places: conversations in the kitchen over breakfast, walks through the garden and the city, taxi rides with colleagues, for example. The whole Academy environment is a cookery of ideas and references.
Have any encounters – with people, places, new information – opened up new paths in your research or practice in the past months?
Naturally, all the other scholars, artists, visitors and Academy staff are inspiring and openly generous folks. t gave me pause to realize how consistently impressive everyone is. And since I myself am something of a butterfly, following various interests, I have found myself branching out further from our original project. Chuna wanted very much to travel to Berlin, to investigate the famous Jacobsen Collection in the Ethnologisches Museum, which has over 900 objects of Central Yup’ik material culture. All of this, between the Vatican Museum and other Italian collections, is leading to a much bigger publication and documentary film project than we originally conceived.
What are you hoping to explore or deepen in the remaining months of your residency?
Since I am only here for a half-term, my time at AAR is almost over, to my great chagrin. I knew before coming here that departing would be the worst part, and meeting so many former Fellows, who keep returning to visit, only confirms this bittersweetness. I walk the campus and the neighborhood, trying to commit to memory every little detail. The irony of my time here is that while I have enjoyed the various pleasures of quietude, a calmer pace of life in contemplation, I have also been anxiously racing to accomplish as much as I can: gathering images, making video interviews, scribbling notes everywhere. The most precious thing has been spending time with Chuna, my collaborator, who is a highly-respected elder with an incredible memory. Chuna is a deep well of cultural and historic knowledge, which he has generously allowed me to document with him. We have worked together for over twenty years, but never in the same place for more than a couple of weeks at a time. These four months together have been immensely gratifying, both intellectually and in our friendship. Having gathered so much terrific material together here in Rome, we foresee many more years ahead of pleasurable work. What a nice life I have! Thank you, Academy.