Fenua - The Last Fragment

Making the Invisible Visible is a multi-layered, multi-format, multi-discipline communication campaign whose main aim is protection of underwater biodiversity. The main objective of the action is to translate complex scientific data into language understandable to a wider public in order to better understand environmental threats and the benefits of nature protection regulations. The campaign builds on the opportunities protection creates for ecological recovery and nature’s capacity to regenerate, while recognising the threats that can undermine its effectiveness: coastal construction, nautical tourism and sea traffic, rising sea levels, and overfishing. The backbone of the project is the naturally occuring Island-Trapped Waves phenomenon and the local and scientific communities working in tandem in order to instate a specific protection zone.

The work Fenua: The Last Fragment aims to contextualize the issues of rising sea levels and the effect that climate change brings to coastal communities on a global scale - by utilizing the example of Tuvalu: the first coastal community under threat of extinction by rising sea levels. The miniature 3D-printed sculpture consisting of collected soil held in a golden vessel, functions both as a reliquary and a political object, evoking the fragility of ecosystems and the cultural erasure triggered by climate change, tourism, and economic extraction. In the context of the Contemporary Art Museum of Tuvalu — a nation on the frontline of rising sea levels — the work becomes a quiet protest, a radical act of tenderness toward land that may soon be submerged or transformed beyond recognition.