Explore the Pacific Ocean

A diverse and expert panel share insights into this vast and vital ecosystem, its history and culture, what it means to its peoples and the challenges it faces. With artists Aata and Ahilapalapa Rands, historian Noelani Arista and diplomat Martin Williams. Chaired by Klaus Dodds

Aata is an independent curator and co-director of Oceania Literature and Arts, Hawaii. Aata is a photographer and art director for projects within the Smithsonian Asian and Pacific American Center. Aata’s photography publications, design and art installations have been featured internationally and heavily throughout the Pacific region. Aata’s curatorial practice concentrates on contemporary vision which utilizes both traditional mediums and emerging technologies.

Noelani Arista is an Assistant Professor of Hawaiian and American History at UH Mānoa and former fellow at the University of Pennsylvania at the McNeil Center for Early American Studies. Her areas of expertise include governance, colonial and indigenous history, translation and research in Hawaiian language archives. Her research has been supported by fellowships from the Mellon Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, and the Native American Program at Dartmouth University. 

Klaus Dodds is Professor of Geopolitics at Royal Holloway University of London and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. He has travelled and around the planet for many years including the Arctic, Antarctica and mountainous areas of the world. His books include Geographies, Genders and Geopolitics of James Bond (Palgrave 2016, with Lisa Funnell), Geopolitics: A Very Short Introduction (OUP 2007) , Pink Ice: Britain and the South Atlantic Empire (I B Tauris 2002) and most recently Ice: Culture and Nature (Reaktion Books 2018).

Ahilapalapa Rands (Hawaiian, Filjian, Pakeha) is an artist Curator and Founding member of D.A.N.C.E art club. Her work is especially informed by issues related to Indigeneity and investigating ways that settler colonisation has, and continues to inform narratives and power dynamics in the Pacific.

Martin Williams was High Commissioner to New Zealand and concurrently Governor of the Pitcairn Islands from 1998 to 2001 and now consultant to the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust.

With curatorial support by Jo Walsh

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