A World of Islands - On Palms, Storms and Coconuts

About

A World of Islands considers the movement of indigenous knowledge, practices, materials and people, and historical and current fabrications of tropical utopia and dystopia. Locating the 'tropics' as both a mythological and real place with shared colonial and ecological trauma but wildly divergent histories and cultures, the exhibition unpicks some of the clichés and relocates agency in the 'tropical' narrative.

This exhibition explores these themes in the context of one of the largest diasporic tropical populations, dispersed in over 100 countries through forced, government-sanctioned and voluntary movement across oceans. Here, A World of Islands brings together artistic perspectives and research on the Philippine archipelago, its climate, its people and their movement over seas and oceans.