Rhea Stark

Rhea Stark is a third-year doctoral student specializing in Islamic art. Her research considers object migration, transculturation, and negotiations of communal identity in the Islamic lands situated around the medieval Mediterranean basin. She is particularly interested in the interplay of Islamic and Jewish material cultures as well as the development of heterodox faith communities. Her other projects focus on Orientalism, the reception of medieval Islamic art, Middle Eastern Jewry during the long nineteenth century, and disability aesthetics. Her research and study have been supported by the American Society of Overseas Research, The Dorot Foundation, and The Kathryn Davis Fellowship for Peace, among other grantors.

Rhea holds a B.A. in Middle East Studies and Archaeology and the Ancient World from Brown University and an M.Phil in Islamic Art and Archaeology from the University of Oxford, where she attended as a Rhodes Scholar. She is currently a research assistant in the Islamic Art and European Paintings Departments at the Met, where she is working on the forthcoming exhibition Orientalism: Between Fact and Fantasy. Before beginning her PhD, Rhea worked as the curatorial assistant for the African, Asian, and Islamic Art Departments at the Brooklyn Museum, where she assisted in the curation of Africa Fashion (2023) and Hiroshige’s One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (2024) and led rotations of the Islamic galleries. Her commitment to living heritage preservation led her to co-found the Jewish Craft School, a community dedicated to the transmission and reinterpretation of Jewish craft and artistic knowledge.