Marissa Perez

Marissa Perez studies featherwork art of ancient Peru and Mesoamerica, as well as early

colonial circulation of hummingbird-feather mosaics. She focuses on how artists and viewers

understood neotropical birds, iridescence, optics, and materiality of precious natural resources.

Her current research project, at the intersection of art history and ethno-ornithology, explores

how Indigenous ecological knowledge was utilized to enhance the visual effects of featherworks.

She is also interested in using museum specimens and historical pictographic codices such as the

Florentine Codex to identify individual bird species used in featherworks.