Kolo Suliafu
Prof. Marek
Art H 309 B
11 December 2023
The Effects of Climate Change on Polynesian Art and Culture
I am doing a presentation on how Polynesians are facing the same amount of negative impacts throughout the islands from climate change as other groups of people we have learned about throughout this quarter. I wanted to do my project through something that resonated with me and since I am Tongan, I thought this representation of art through my own culture would be the most interesting.
The book Marking Indigeneity: The Tongan Art of Sociospatial Relations written by TĒVITA O. KAʹILI specifies many ways in which Tongans are learning to adapt to the hardships that are being caused not only from climate change, but from being an island in general. I listed some bullet points here but the main topic that resonated with me the most was the cultural meaning of Vahe. Vahe translates to the process of sharing resources. Throughout chapter 6 of Ka’ili’s book, he writes about the social importance of this process for the Hierarchy of families. Back story on this, the Kingdom of Tonga has a monarchy based government, therefore the social status of families is very important to them. In Ka’ili’s book, he also writes about how vahe has gotten harder to do with the amount of volcanic eruptions and tsunamis that have been occurring in just the past 10 years alone. These tsunamis are causing over-watering of plants and destroying the resources Tongans use to build, cook, eat, and create many cultural arts. The two pictures on the right of the second slide in the presentation is cultural Tongan woodwork, as well as the tribal patterns that are representative of Tongan history and stories. Similar to the article called, “Indigenous Media: Dialogic Resistance to Climate Disruption Actions” by Salma Monani, Renata Ryan Burchfield, Danika Medak-Saltzman, and William Lempert,” in The Routledge Companion to Contemporary Art, Visual Culture and Climate Change, T.J. Demos ed. (Routledge, 2021) that my section had read in week 4 of this quarter. The added perspectives from each artist was enlightening and inspired me to look deeper into the different types of art that can be shown throughout my own personal culture. With that being said, as I read this article and analyzed the reading, I was able to draw from the different techniques of art and how the indigenous people utilize their resources for film, paintings,etc so I then added the different art works, such as performance outfits, tribal patterns drawn, and wood work from palm leaves and trees.
In all these pictures on the third slide of my presentation, each of the women are wearing a culture outfit that was handmade by my uncle Simon Tuivai. He is the artist and creator of these outfits, which are called tenguas in the Tongan language. The two outfits on the right were made from ngatus, which are Tongan paper mats that are painted and sewn into. When speaking to my uncle about these outfits, the two on the left were the easiest to make because they were the most Americanized due to the shortage of leaves from pandanus trees due to the tsunamis and lack of resources overall due to certain world problems such as climate change and poverty. So instead of using full mats from Tonga, which can be seen on the right, he had to use woven mats made in America. The cultural significance is similar to the pieces in the Susan Fair, "Eskimos' and 'Aleuths',''Actions Alaska Native Art: Tradition, Innovation, Continuity (Fairbanks, AK: University of Alaska Press, 2016). Inupiaq walrus ivory carvings are seen throughout this article as a cultural factor to certain native Alaskan tribes. The specific technique of this art piece requires engravement of ivory and whalebone. It was also said that this task was very tedious, which is what drew me to add the art of tenguas. Tenguas are also very tedious to make and require a lot of different material that is not necessarily found in regular households. I drew inspiration and was able to connect back to the Alaskan art pieces presented throughout this specific article.
Throughout this project I really wanted to emphasize the Tongan Culture and how climate change is affecting not only the culture throughout the United states with the art, but also the island itself. However, I do want to address the intersection of how negatively Indigenous art and their people are also being affected by climate change, as much as Polynesian culture is, especially because this was heavily shown throughout this course. In this course when we read Mark Maslin’s book Global Warming, I was able to fully understand the repercussions of climate change in different environments and areas. On page 9 specifically of the reading we were assigned to, I was able to see the graphs of the different atmospheres that were being affected. With that being said, I wanted to further research how the Indigenous land was specifically being affected by climate change, since they were a big group of people that were highlighted a lot throughout our class. I found the article “An arts-based approach to community documentation and revitalization of nutritious and drought-tolerant indigenous crops for climate change adaptation,” written by Saori Ogura, and she talks about her work in stating that she works alongside of, “Indigenous communities in Sikkim in the Indian Himalayas and in Mazvihwa, Zimbabwe, documenting nutritious and drought-tolerant indigenous small grains using arts-based methodologies, such as drawing.” She further explains how she and her colleagues found a decline in their cash crops, which were negatively affecting their land’s resource fulfillment. Following this finding of a negative decline from climate change itself, she continues to say how she “.. conducted drawing workshops, created an opportunity for community members to reconnect to the neglected plants, and to revalue their Indigenous knowledge.” I found it riveting to see the use of art for guidance to help throughout Indigenous land.
In “The Age of Resilience,” Rifkin emphasizes the use of collaboration as a main component for a resilient society that is able to overcome the ever-changing challenges of the world. In the book, Rifkin proposes a model that highlights the use of renewable energy. It is built off the power of new technology in order to create a more energy efficient climate. Throughout this reading, I was able to conceptualize the main argument and reflect on the ways that I can add this information to my final project. One main topic I knew I wanted to bring into my project from the reading of Rifikin is the emphasis on collaboration. He promotes the use of collectiveness and collaboration as a more effective process to further conquer world problems such as climate change. Rifkin explores the ways that society’s can come together and work as a community to better their own economy by sharing resources, rather than solely relying on the customs and traditional economic models in our society today. I believe this is a huge factor in the success of adaptation for Polynesians and Indigenous communities. With their hardships faced and their ability to overcome many problems using their collaboration while also integrating art and culture.
Cooling Down : Local Responses to Global Climate Change written by Susanna Hoffman is a book specifically about how different communities and areas are adapting to climate change. Specifically catering to the Polynesian islands was Chapter 3, which was called “Who Is Perturbed by Ecological Perturbations? Marine Scientists’ and Polynesian Fishers’ Understandings of a Crown-of-Thorns Starfish Outbreak.” In this section, Hoffman specifically talks about how locals on the islands have visibly noticed more effects of climate change, especially through sea level rising. “Low-lying atolls and the people who inhabit them are suffering the first effects of rising oceans, and studies have documented how island peoples are adapting, migrating, and interpreting these changes,” as written by Hoffman in chapter 3 of her book. She then goes on to describe the importance of the sea to islanders. Attesting to their acknowledgment and adaptations to continue to inhabit their land, while living through the rising sea levels caused by climate change. When stemming into this final piece of my project, I gained insight on the overall goal of my project, which was to compare the hardships of climate change and find the intersectionality between art and the struggle of Polynesians. This came from the indigenous perspectives of week 8. In week 8, we had artists’ visits from Tanya Lukin Linklater, Sonya Kelliher-Combs and Erin Gingrich. Their stories were riveting and engaging. I found these super enjoyable, but was also able to relate to so many aspects of their art. One specific one being that they are different and they willingly and openly know their culture is significantly different than others, and they wanted to showcase that and embrace it. With that being said, I wanted to be able to resonate with my own project and make it about something meaningful to me.
Sources Cited
Bunten, A. C., & Fair, S. (2009). Alaska native art: Tradition-innovation-continuity, by Susan W. Fair. ARCTIC, 60(3), 25–89. https://doi.org/10.14430/arctic226
Demos, T. J., Scott, E. E., & Banerjee, S. (2023). The routledge companion to contemporary art, visual culture, and climate change. Routledge.
Hoffman, S. M., Eriksen, T. H., & Mendes, P. (2022). Cooling down: Local responses to global climate change. Berghahn.
Igloliorte, H. L., & Taunton, C. (2023). The routledge companion to indigenous art histories in the United States and Canada. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.
Jetn̄il-Kijiner, K., Kava, L., & Perez, C. S. (2022). Indigenous Pacific Islander eco-literatures. University of Hawaiʻi Press.
Kaʻili, T. O., & Māhina, ʻOkusitino. (2018). Marking indigeneity: The Tongan art of sociospatial relations. The University of Arizona Press.
Maslin, M. (2004). Global warming: A very short introduction (very short introductions ; 118). Oxford University Press.
Ogura, S. (2019). An arts-based approach to community documentation and revitalization of nutritious and drought-tolerant indigenous crops for climate change adaptation. The Lancet Planetary Health, 3. https://doi.org/10.1016/s2542-5196(19)30162-7
Rifkin, J. (2022). The age of resilience: Reimagining existence on a Rewilding Earth. St. Martin’s Press, an imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group.
Susan Fair, (Fairbanks, AK: University of Alaska Press, 2016) "'Eskimos' and 'Aleuths',"Actions Alaska Native Art: Tradition, Innovation, Continuity