Fighting for Our Survival
This December will mark the 5th anniversary of the signing of the Paris Agreement, a crucial global climate treaty. The Pacific played a pivotal role in pushing countries to adopt more robust commitments – and has continued to lobby for necessary climate measures. However, many industrialized countries are failing to take the climate action needed to keep the planet at a liveable temperature of 1.5°C above normal.
With the COP26 negotiations cancelled this year, we still want to make waves about key climate truths. Created by artists across the Pacific, this film series showcases the emotional weight of the climate crisis, the urgency of action, and the way forward.
Watch
“2030, 2040, long term versus short term
we debate this around the table.
We do the work, submit reports
but we are short on time. Before
the clock strikes midnight,
before the pumpkin rots
before our glass island shatters.”
Watch Chapter 1: Density of Vā, a poem by Frances C Koya Vaka’uta
Watch Chapter 2: Midnight, a poem by Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner
Watch Chapter 3: Mana, a poem by Mia Kami
This film series. was produced by the Pacific Climate Warriors, 350.org, The Climate Vulnerable Forum, Agam Agenda, and the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities.
Midnight on 31 December is a survival deadline for the climate — and for some 1.2 billion vulnerable people living at the frontlines of a worsening global climate crisis.
Please join the Climate Vulnerable Forum (as known by our acronym, the CVF), in the Midnight Survival Deadline for the Climate initiative, an online and social media challenge to all countries to deliver on the Paris obligations they signed to protect our climate and our rights.
About the Artists
Ropate Kama
Ropate is the Co-Owner of www.kamacatchme.com a Photography / Videography collective based in Fiji that specialises in capturing Destination Weddings, specifically in ‘Adventure / Off The Beaten Path’ elopements and Cultural weddings both in Fiji and internationally.
Kama Catch Me has accrued multiple Awards over the years since its inception in 2012, the most prestigious being the ‘Rangefinder 30 rising stars of 2018’ www.rangefinderonline.com
Ropate is an i-taukei (indigenous Fijian) who was born in the United Kingdom (where his dad served in the British Army) and was raised in Fiji from the age of 6.
His life experiences coupled with a deep longing to be home in Fiji whenever he was abroad, have been the inspiration behind his ability to not only tell relevant stories but more importantly, to connect his own emotions to these images and portray the essence of Fiji and her Mana to the Diaspora who feel physically disconnected and yet so fully connected at the same time.
1angrynative | Frances C Koya Vaka’uta
Associate Professor Frances C. Koya Vaka’uta is Director of the Oceania Center for Arts, Culture and Pacific Studies at The University of the South Pacific in Suva. A curriculum design, development and evaluation specialist she has taught, developed courses and supervised graduate research in the areas of curriculum studies, curriculum development, practice and research, theories and ideas in education, education in small island states, culture and education, education for sustainable development and Pacific studies. Her research interests focus on Sustainability and Education for Sustainability with particular emphasis on Indigenous Research, Pacific Arts and Arts Education, Pacific epistemologies and methodologies, cultural competency and community and policy development. An advocate for locally driven solutions informed by meaningful engagement with Pacific indigenous peoples and local communities, she has also engaged in national and regional community and policy development, curriculum skills development, research and policy engagement. A poet and artist, her creative practice explores Pacific island heritage and contemporary issues in the islands. Beyond the page, she performs under the spoken word pseudonym 1angrynative.
Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner
Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner is a poet of Marshallese ancestry, born in the Marshall Islands and raised in Hawaiʻi. She received international acclaim through her poetry performance at the opening of the United Nations Climate Summit in New York in 2014. The University of Arizona Press published her collection of poetry, Iep Jāltok: Poems from a Marshallese Daughter in 2017. She has created art installations and performances with the Smithsonian and the Queensland Art Gallery, amongst others. In 2019, she was selected as an Obama Asia Pacific Leader Fellow and MIT Director’s Media Lab Fellow. She received her Master’s in Pacific Island Studies from the University of Hawaiʻi, and is currently a PhD student at Australia National University. Kathy serves as Climate Envoy for the Republic of the Marshall Islands government and as Director for the Marshall Islands-based youth environmental nonprofit Jo-Jikum.
Mia Kami
Mia Kami is a Tongan singer/songwriter based in Suva, Fiji. She is passionate about gender equality, indigenous sovereignty, climate change & the Pacific region. She channels these passions into songwriting & uses her music to tell her stories as a young Pacific woman. She believes that art is the strongest form of storytelling that connects Pacific and indigenous people to their ancestors & their descendants.
MATA
MATA is a Hip Hop dance company based in Suva. Mata was created on the humble grounds to serve the development of a Hip Hop Dance culture in Fiji! They wanted to create, nurture and develop opportunities for all aspiring dancers who have a passion for the dance genre Hip Hop.
At Mata they aim to provide dancers with the necessary opportunities, training and experiences to assist them to fully discover their full potential as individual artists in Fiji.
Follow the Money
It’s simple — to prevent devastating climate breakdown, we have to end all finance to fossil fuels.
Public and private banks pour hundreds of billions of dollars each year into the climate-wrecking fossil fuel industry. We need to urgently work together to stop fossil fuel finance through sustained public organizing and people power.
The Poems
The Density of Vā
1angrnative on climate change in the Pacific
By Frances C Koya Vaka’uta
“In the space between the bleeding sky and dawn
voices wail in an unfamiliar tongue.
in the space between my pito and my mother’s bones
A white owl watches two eel-gods
Dying
As a dog
Howls
Red earth into black Lua- two
and rock watersky lines pierce my throat
atua – god in my belly.”
Midnight
By Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner
“For Tony, we’ll say
For Tony
Corals are resilient I’ve been told
and so are we – we’ve survived worse. Just ask
your elders they’ll lift their shirts, show you
bunker scars, typhoon tent towns, atomic nightmares
of lost irradiated islands. So this
is just another incoming tide to shore up against”
Mana
By Mia Kami
“Why do we accept definitions of how our people should be?
Based off of written accounts of a man who looks nothing like me
He could speak our language but not from his heart
When he wrote our history he set us apart
Abandoned and bruised
Left alone in the dark”