Dive even deeper into the Moana

Join us for an event on Pacific cosmogonies and marine life on the seabed and the increased global competition in these contested waters with Margarida Mendes and Latai Taumoepeau.

Two water guardians meet in a conversation about Ocean activism and creative reslience, as seen through the lens of Pacific and Atlantic resistance movements against deep sea mining.

Latai Taumoepeau and Margarida Mendes amplify their dialogue held during the cycle OCEAN/UNI: Pacific Resistance, which expanded ripples of solidarity around environmental justice, and inquired how one can build alliances from the Ocean’s point of view.

"Pacific Resistance" introduced topics such as Indigenous conservation methods and custodianship, and the role of orality, ephemeral culture, and interisland solidarity in raising awareness towards rapidly changing environments and extractable futures.

Departing from concrete case studies in Tonga and the Azores islands, this talk brings forward the role of ocean literacy and mining literacy in broadening the tools that set resistance movements in action while empowering communities. We will debate the importance of Pacific islanders and indigenous stewardship in protecting the environment, giving centre stage to the role of storytellers and wisdom keepers for rethinking advocacy and modes of custodianship.

Merging intentions with the exhibition "Re-Stor(y)ing Oceania", we will travel deep into the Moana, the ancestral cradle of the seabed, to widen debates about creative resistance and collaborations between scientists and artists, and seek strength in understanding genealogies of life, while collapsing partitions, and open space to listen to the unknown.

Mousse Magazine & Publishing will be present with a pop-up bookstore as Ocean Space's Media Partner.

Latai Taumoepeau (b:1972 Gadigal Ngura (Sydney), Australia) makes live-art-work. Her faiva (body-centred practice) is from her homelands, the Island Kingdom of Tonga and her birthplace the Eora Nation. She mimicked, trained and un-learned dance, in multiple institutions of learning, beginning with her village, a suburban church hall, the club and a university. Her faiva (performing art) centres Tongan philosophies of relational vā (space and time); cross-pollinating ancient and everyday temporal practice to make visible the impact of climate crisis in the Pacific. Latai conducts urgent environmental movements and actions to assist transformation in Oceania.

Margarida Mendes is a researcher, curator, artist and educator, exploring the overlap between systems thinking, experimental film, sound practices and ecopedagogy. She creates transdisciplinary forums, exhibitions and experiential works where alternative modes of education and sensory practices may catalyse political imagination and restorative action. Mendes has long been involved in anti-extraction activism collaborating with marine NGOs, Universities, and institutions of the art world. She holds a PhD in Research Architecture by the Department of Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths University ofLondon and is a member of Natural Contract Lab, a transdisciplinary collective of lawyers and artists working on restorative justice and rights of nature across Europe.