The Marianas Adrift: Indexing Modernity in The Archipelago Beyond Tourism

Abstract

“The Marianas Adrift” examines the cultural power of sight in the Pacific, questioning the authority of “complete vision” and its colonial origins. Engaging the oscillation between the illegible and the hyper-legible, the project interrogates how landscape is visualized, archived, and designed through the epistemic frameworks of islands and archipelagos. Set across the island of Pagan, the project embraces an archipelagic approach to interconnection, intervening in episodes of manifestation and dissolution—where lava flows repopulate islands and bomb craters become foundations for cultural resurgence. Here, design operates as an index, simultaneously revealing the accumulated histories of landscape and reorienting its spectacle.