Tracing lineages of interisland solidarity among Pacific islanders, Pacific Resistance introduces the practices of artists, scholars, activists, leaders, and policymakers who have been committed to community-building and creative resilience through nurturing acts of repair. Through conversations that act as ripples of solidarity while retracing their paths as powerful acts of environmental memory, this program inquires into building – and maintaining – alliances from Oceania's point of view.

Exploring the diverse roots of Pacific inhabitation, imaginaries, and cultural legacies, these sessions assemble testimonies from the lived experiences of various cultural practitioners and ocean stakeholders, including first-hand knowledge of Pacific Islanders. Perspectives from distinct islands and contexts open a debate on the quest for environmental and social justice across the Pacific region. 

Calling for waves of resistance, this program delves into the ocean as a relational space in which alliances and political genealogies emerge. It opens a space for critical and situated reflection on Pacific cosmogonies, expanding on Oceanian notions of planetarity and cultural heritage, intertwined with environmental conservation and forms of cohabitation. 

As our central concept, "resistance" opens lines of thought on extractable futures, the historicity of resource and ecosystem exploitation – through military and nuclear investments – and movements of opposition as countercolonial worldviews; the conservation of Indigenous ocean knowledges through local ecological knowledge and Indigenous conservation methods; and the multilegal spaces opened by oceanic debates as seen through manifold points-of-view. 

Weaving the space of the testimonial with oral traditions, the sessions juxtapose artist-led presentations with testimonies from scholars, activists, leaders, and policy-makers, bringing an intersectional and situated lens to consider sonic and embodied practices, aural performativities, and situated ecopolitics. As such, the overall programming arch explores the role of the environmental humanities as an initiator and a transdisciplinary space for crucial debates on conservation practices and Pacific Ocean histories, while guiding awareness towards forms of interisland solidarity. 

The program takes place in Pacific time zones to welcome local communities and audiences from across the globe. For those unable to attend the sessions live, recordings will be made available on the dedicated semester space on the ocean comm/uni/ty site.

METHODOLOGY

Pacific Resistance is OCEAN / UNI's 2024 spring semester. Co-developed with artist and curator Taloi Havini, it represents an evolving, expanding, and flowing body of knowledge preceding the forthcoming exhibition in TBA21–Academy's Ocean Space, opening in March 2024. It grows from the previous semester — Culturing the Deep Sea, which transported us to the benthic depths — and is rooted in Pacific worldviews: a source of inspiration not only for resistance but for shaping a future in which humans around the world are able to re-weave their relationship with the Ocean. As such, live sessions will take place in Pacific time zones to create a meaningful engagement with the Pacific communities running the program with us and to welcome new members from those geographies. 

The curriculum is inspired by Taloi Havini's methodology of call and response, artist Latai Taumoepeau's artistic and activist practice, and the central importance of listening and dialoguing in Pacific cultures. Thus, we focus on narrative- and strategy-building, engaging Indigenous worldviews as well as scientific analysis to approach urgent (geo)political issues from multiple angles. Many of the speakers are active practitioners who will contribute to the upcoming exhibition, forming a sort of curatorium for sharing ongoing research. 

In concert with the main sessions, two activation tracks open to our community explore new tools for critical research and develop a community-led writing endeavor. Tactical Tech's Exposing the Invisible lead activation series Research – Reach out – Resist, which aims to collectively shape and share digital research tools that foster agency and influence decision-making processes related to extractivism and ecology. Writer, researcher, and ocean comm/uni/ty member Kayla Archer will be the master of ceremonies for a learning and writing group inspired by the Caribbean Calypso music style, titled Orchestras of Awe/dacity, blending knowledges and agencies into a poetic piece thought to intervene in ocean governance situations. More information on both activation series, including how to take part, is available below.

WHO CAN PARTICIPATE & REGISTRATION

The program is intended for anyone eager to deepen their relations with the ecological, political, aesthetic, ethical, and scientific knowledges around the realities and futures of the Ocean. Lectures will be held in English, so a good listening and speaking level is recommended to ensure meaningful exchange.  Participants are required to register for their attendance to the program online via Zoom. You are welcome to register in advance for more than one session. If you attend five sessions or more, you will receive an official certificate of attendance. 

REGISTRATION FORM FOR OCEAN / UNI SESSIONS HERE 

Activation tracks have a separate registration process, see details below.

ACTIVATIONS 

Orchestras of Awe/dacity: Collective Writing towards Politicizing the Deep Sea with Kayla Archer 

This activation series will convene writers to surrender ownership of language-making in order to generate a Calypsonian-inspired poetry that not only seeks to give voice to the life of the deep sea, but a voice that defends itself. In striving for an ocean literacy defined as "gathering power as an ocean citizen", poetry and collective ritual can be the vessel in which we harmonize with the unknown and challenge the political context that violently asserts extractivist narratives over these spaces. The series is conceived and led by writer, researcher, and ocean comm/uni/ty member Kayla Archer, who will share more detailed information on the ocean comm/uni/ty site. If interested, please tick the box in the registration form to be informed on when and how to sign up.


Research – Reach out – Resist with Exposing the Invisible

Activations are a workshop-style format developed by OCEAN / UNI that invite active engagement in the topics discussed during the semester.

A series of five activations will be co-facilitated by Tactical Tech's "Exposing the Invisible" project alongside TBA21Academy. 
As green transition narratives are taking over global political debate, humanity seems to be at a crossroads: one possible direction leads to a new extractivist wave, only "painted green". At the same time, voices from communities around the world call for new ways of existing that would gradually move beyond extractivism. How do we position ourselves in this debate and what are the tools that we can use to contribute meaningfully to this struggle? Do you want to share your experiences and research with others who hold the same interests? Within the framework of this semester's sessions, activations will support the development of research into topics such as global cases of ecocide, greenwashing, and opaque economic developments. We are looking for journalists, scientists, artists, activists, and researchers to dig into these themes together. 

Tactical Tech is an international NGO that engages with citizens and civil society organizations to explore and mitigate the impacts of technology on society. Exposing the Invisible (ETI) is a project of Tactical Tech that develops resources, training, and collaborations promoting investigation as one of the most important forms of public engagement. It produces the Exposing the Invisible Kit, a collaborative, self-learning resource that makes investigative techniques, tools, and safety measures used by experienced investigators more accessible to people and communities who feel motivated to start their own investigations.

WHAT WILL WE DO? 

The activation series includes five sessions of 2:20 hours each (including a break). Each session will focus on particular stages and approaches to investigations, starting from the formulation of research questions and paths of inquiry through identifying information sources, safe methods of evidence collection and verification online, and archiving information or finding data about companies. We will combine presentations and discussions with different inquiry methods, including group work and individual tasks centered around participants' topics of interest while encouraging participants to share their knowledge with each other in brief interventions we call "skill-shares". The aim is not only to explore and expand our areas of interest but also to develop new collaboration opportunities and to raise possible topics and paths to investigate further beyond this workshop series. Therefore, with these activations, you can expect to be part of: 
 - Workshops and discussions on topics such as safety and security for investigations, digital investigation techniques, managing sources, working with databases, investigating companies, starting collaborative investigations; 
 - Working groups and exercises to share new themes, approaches and resources you can use in your work; 
 - Skill-sharing among peers whereby participants provide brief (5-minute) interventions to each other on specific topics, research questions and concrete skills; 
 - Networking with like-minded people and opportunities to start new collaborations across topics and borders. 

HOW TO APPLY FOR THIS ACTIVATION? 

To apply for the Research – Reach out – Resist Activation series, please complete THIS FORM by January 10, 2024, and be as specific as possible when answering the questions. This will help us to better understand your interests and needs as well as to prepare thoroughly for facilitating the sessions. The activation series will be able to accommodate a maximum of 20 participants. Please note that these activation sessions are highly participatory and will involve practice, discussions, and teamwork. We welcome applicants with research and investigation experience or who are at the start of an investigative journey, with a curiosity to learn from each other, share skills, and explore collaborative paths to "fish" for information or sail across unexplored waters.

RELATED OPPORTUNITY

Along with participation in the sessions, we are again commissioning texts to enrich the curriculum by adding other perspectives to the featured topics. We encourage applicants who are not a part of Pacific communities to be mindful of their situatedness, to avoid appropriating knowledges and instead draw connections with case studies within their own geographies. 

This is a call to OCEAN / UNI participants and ocean comm/ uni/ty members who find any of the topics of this coming semester especially resonant and would like their writing to be featured on Ocean-Archive.org's Journeys page. 

See more details and directly apply via this FORM no later than January 10, 2024.

DEEP OCEAN LITERACY 

The methodologies of OCEAN / UNI aim to create spaces of collaborative work, coalitional thinking,[1] and solidarity to generate new pedagogies and ways of researching that go beyond words, grown from feeling. This sensitivity to the oceanic elaborates a critical ocean literacy that extends a factual comprehension of the mutual influence between us and the Ocean, moving deeper into thinking through the Ocean. 
Performed individually and collectively, such acts can blend in different kinds of knowledge and release us from coded connections to wander through the Ocean’s rhythms, poetry, and biology; through these fluid processes of hybridization we might come to grasp and communicate our ecological crisis.

Learning through sensing, familiarity, and the body can ignite joy and healing, can grow affinity with otherness. Telling stories—and coming together to listen—can access cosmic timescales, can weave motives and planetary movements into the spaces between data points. How do the ways in which we talk to each other, gather, listen, and learn matter and create kinship? By welcoming worldviews originating in different densities and humidities, latitudes and altitudes, perhaps a new critical perspective could arise, one that can tell the story of the fragile interconnectedness of our biosphere, empowering humans and nonhumans to wade toward a space of balanced coexistence.

Imagine the deep sea. It seems not to move, to breathe, to live in the way we know under the Sun. The seeming strangeness of the ‘deep sea’, typically defined as more than 200 meters deep, and the thickly mediated representations of its scenes render it hard to relate to.
What’s at stake on the seabed, Earth’s last extractive frontier? In the open ocean, which creatures thrive throughout the water column? How can we speak to their livelihoods and connect our concerns for living in common?

Learning about the deep sea is the strongest tool we have to protect it: becoming ‘ocean literate’ is not just a way to gather facts, but to gather power as an ocean citizen. As part of the preparation for the upcoming semester, you can already now, dive in this available collection on Ocean-Archive.org dedicated to Deep Ocean Literacy. It is meant as a research tool, open to your additions, on scientific exploration of the deep ocean; advocacy for deep ocean sustainability; extractive industries and activities; biodiversity at the seabed and the water column; and Pacific methodologies.

ABOUT OCEAN / UNI 

OCEAN / UNI is an initiative dedicated to art, activism, and science that invites fluid thinking with the Ocean as a way to move beyond the binaries of land and sea. OCEAN / UNI's curriculum provides students, researchers, and the public access to wide-ranging ideas and explorations through regular live sessions, reading groups, small-scale workshops or activations, and other online material, free and accessible to everyone on Ocean-Archive.org
                        
Aiming to complement and enhance land-based understanding of the Earth, it covers a wide range of ecological, political, aesthetic, ethical, and scientific topics around the realities and futures of the Ocean.
                        
As the online portal to access the ongoing and past programs of OCEAN / UNI, ocean comm/uni/ty platform harbors collaboration and offers a space for researchers, practitioners, and ocean lovers of all stripes to exchange knowledge and seek inspiration; to share and promote their work; to spark and maintain collaborations. Past semesters can be found in the dedicated OCEAN / UNI space HERE.
                        
ocean comm/uni/ty is a feature of Ocean-Archive.org, a user-friendly meeting place for diving deep and crossing disciplines. In concert with OCEAN / UNI and Ocean- Archive.org, ocean comm/uni/ty forms an immersive three- pronged ecosystem for learning, discovering, and gathering.