Pacific Futurisms

The Pacific Arts Association Panel will explore the growing field of Pacific Futurisms. It asks what are the future aesthetic and political practices of Oceania (the Pacific Islands, Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, Papua New Guinea, and more)? The ʻōlelo noʻeau (or, Hawaiian proverbial saying), “I ka wā ma mua, I ka wā ma hope” or “the future is in the past” provides one theoretical grounding in which music, art, and activism represents an aesthetic and praxis of Pacific Futurisms. And beyond Hawaiʻi and Polynesia, the present and future are inseparable from the past. By weaving ancestral knowledges into Indigenous Pacific methods of cultural expression, this panel will engage with how artists and scholars create anti-colonial art that addresses the problems of the present and future. We are also interested in how futurism might be considered in a historical lens, for instance how artists in the 19^th century imagined Hawaiʻi’s future in the face of U.S. occupation. This critical cultural and historical framework is generative for bringing into existence anti-capitalist futures that elucidate Oceanic relationality to land and people. Pacific Futurisms (Moana Futurisms, Solwara Futurisms, and more) embody the actualization of the futures we want and need, and in doing so, we realize we must first look to the past for guidance, protocols, and answers. This panel builds on the PAA Symposium that took place in Honolulu in June 2024, and invites submissions from scholars, thinkers, artists, curators, and cultural practitioners to add to this rich and timely discussion.