Public Story
Fongafale
Some climate change scientists have predicted that due to current rates of sea level rise and climate change, Tuvalu as a sovereign nation will cease to exist in the next 50-100 years. If these projections turn out to be true, Tuvalu could be the first nation to have to be evacuated as a result of climate change. To date, no other countries have agreed to accept future Tuvaluan climate change refugees.
Despite the threats that climate change poses to the very existence of their ancestral island home, the Tuvaluan people maintain strong Polynesian cultural roots and live a lifestyle that is decidedly relaxed and unhurried.
I am currently conducting academic research in Tuvalu that investigates visual representations of the Tuvaluan people in international media and how this influences "last chance" tourism in the country. My photographic work in Tuvalu is part of an ongoing project to showcase the relative normalcy of life in places that the media often portrays as hopeless and dire. I hope to expand this work to other countries in the near future.
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