|
I have had the privilege to work with some amazing artists and organizers throughout the Solwara. The youth led artist collective known as Youngsolwara are regional leaders in Suva, Fiji in raising awareness and developing critical consciousness on issues such as seabed mining, banning nuclear testing, decolonizing West Papua, and climate justice through art actions and political education workshops. I was lucky enough to become a member and mentor within this collective of inspiring visual artists, spoken word artists and singers. We curated an exhibition on issues facing the Blue Pacific in Suva in 2018, we then brought those works to Honiara to engage in artist dialogue with artists in Solomon Islands during the Melanesian Arts Festival. But most importantly, we challenged the existence of the Indonesian presence at the festival, as they continue their ongoing genocide of the West Papuan people.
The Melanesian Indigenous Land Defence Alliance (MILDA), fights for self-determination and the protection of the lands and waters of Melanesia, through direct action, organizing, peopleʻs movements, and policy. I was humbled when I was approached in 2021 to develop a website to highlight their work since 2009. MILDA represents what it means to try and decolonize and maintain your cultures in world surrounded by unchecked racial capitalism. One of the most important collaborations was born out of my friendship with spoken word artist and climate justice activist, Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner. I was invited to work with you from her non-profit organization, Jo-Jikum, which works with you to use art as a tool for advocacy and social change. Jo-Jikum collaborates with visual artists, poets, performance artists, musicians and podcast creators to help Marshallese youth tell their own stories. I was fortunate enough to facilitate a photography workshop for Jo-Jikum in 2018, that developed into an exhibition that was shown at the close of the National Climate Dialogues. Jo-Jikum was among the first youth led climate justice organizations in Oceania and remains a leader in youth advocacy. In 2023, I was asked by my dear friend, Katerina Teaiwa to be a co-curator for the Hawai'i iteration of the exhibition Project Banaba at the Bishop Museum. Project Banaba tells shares the stories and genealogies of the people of Banaba, whose homeland was devastated by phosphate mining and whose people were forcibly relocated to Rabi island in Fiji so that the British Phosphate Company could send phosphate to Australia and New Zealand for the their fertilizer and food production. It only took eighty years to completely strip the island of its phosphate, a process that takes millennia to create. The fight for the Banaba continues to this day and not surprisingly there are still mining companies who have their sites on continuing extraction, even as only coral spires remain. To understand Banaba, is to understand resilience and resistance alongside the climate crisis, genocide through extraction and capitalism, militarism to protect extraction and loss of sovereign governance, through forced relocation. The Black Pacific Alliance (BPA) was born out the sudden loss of Teresia Teaiwa, Katerinaʻs sister and beloved scholar, mentor and activist against "militourism" in Oceania, as well as the rise of the global Black Lives Matter movement which also had powerful ripple effects across the Pacific. Courtney Savali Andrews, one of the co-founders of BPA and I were both on an interactive panel on Blackness in the Pacific with Teresia and other women of Black and Pacific Islander decent in 2016 at the Pacific Histories Conference, held in Guahan. The gathering combined ceremony, poetry, song, visual art and critical discourse on the impacts of anti-Blackness in the Pacific. When Teresia suddenly passed away from pancreatic cancer only a year later at the age of 47, we felt that this discussion needed to take on a structure to continue these discussions. The Black Pacific Alliance is a space for Black Pacific Islanders to engage in real talk about the issues we face both within our families and society. It is not merely an issue of identity, but a matter of decolonization and pushing back against white supremacist concepts that have been ingested by many Pacific peoples. BPA is a space for internal conversations among people in our own communities. I am the hope pelekikena of Hui Aloha ʻĀina o Honolulu, a branch of Ka ʻAhahui Hawaiʻi Aloha ʻĀina. Hui Aloha ʻĀina was originally formed in 1893 as a response to the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom. In fact, it was through their efforts that the treaty of annexation by the US was actually defeated in 1898, however, true to form, the US broke its own laws and seized Hawaiʻi through a joint resolution. Therefore, its entire presence here is on of illegal military occupation. Hui Aloha ʻĀina has taken on many forms over the past century and half, but now we are committed to a 21st approach to our liberation and building out a new generation of resistance to empire, ground in our ancestral knowledge and love for our ʻāina. We provide historical walking tours as a tool for recruitment and believe in an internationalist solidarity approach. To learn more about our theory of change, please check the link to our website below. To learn more about organizations that are doing critical interventions in the Pacific , check out these sites: |
|