Paradise Lost - 13.24S-163.09W - crystal, lost wax, 2018, 7.5 x 5 x 2"

In a post climate change world most atolls are submerged. This book tells a story and is a memorial for Suwarrow Atoll, showing the atoll underwater. Adventurer Tom Neale inhabited Suwarrow in solitude for many years before it became a national park. His idyllic story of living in paradise inspired generations in the 1970’s and 80’s to sail off to the South Pacific in search of their own version of utopia. I feel the heartbreak of losing these atolls that hold our dreams of paradise on Earth.

 

Suwarrow atoll is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Suwarrow Park information: http://www.mpatlas.org/mpa/sites/5938/

 

Deeper into the Heart of Paradise - What is the conversation that takes us forward into the 22nd century?

My birthday, August 7th, is one of the 2 days in-between the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. Although I was born many years afterwards, I was reminded of this tragedy every year through global news reporting of memorial events around my birthday. My own celebration of life in contrast with the memorialization and grief over the bombings imprinted on my soul the duality of grief and celebration. As a young adult I worked at Greenpeace in the early 1980’s for a myriad of causes. The campaign for a nuclear free pacific resonated with my spirit and my love of islands. Nuclear testing in Pacific island archipelagos is unfathomable to me. Blowing up paradise? This question still stirs deeply within. Our economic reliance on the military industrial complex must change. Our entire value structure must shift to one that values peace and the preservation of wild places for future generations. The countries that protect their environment will be the leaders of the 22nd century. That is the conversation I want to be engaged in.

Archive of nuclear testing images: atomicarchive.com

 

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