Pongso no Tao and Pacific Island Ecology

This project represents Oceanic peoples as custodians of the sea who “reach out to similar people elsewhere in the common task of protecting the seas for the general welfare of all living things.” My work envisions an archipelagic region in the Pacific, reshaping Taiwan as a place linked to Austronesian modes of language, space, body, and culture. My Tao ancestors used to move freely in the Pacific Ocean, following the migratory route of the fling fish that are subject to the flow of the Kuroshio Current. This north-flowing current on the west side of the North Pacific drives the fling fish migration, which, in turn, shapes and reshapes the migratory route of the island indigenes. Because of the regular movement among the islands, Pacific Islanders conceive of their environment as an extensive, communal body that follows the pathway of the current. The sense of community encompasses not only similar human beings on the seas but nonhuman species, generating a widening circle of associations. Because Tao people feed on the fling fish and center their rituals and calendars on the movement of the fish, this means that both humans and nonhumans traverse the Pacific, deterritorializing the ocean.