The Marshallese Arts Project was designed and carried out by a team of social scientists, researchers in the arts and humanities, and artists. They ran a series of participatory arts workshops to engage young Marshallese people in the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) and Hawaii, and to generate new understandings of the unique histories and challenges of the many Marshallese who have been displaced from their ancestral homelands. Young people were invited to paint public murals, write poetry, create art, and take photos. MAP also ran training workshops on arts education, creative writing, and visual literacy for trainee teachers, and developed resource packs for dissemination to schools in the RMI.
Self-expression is a prerequisite for self-respect.
Albert Wendt, Samoan writer and educator
The project’s aims were to
- explore the potential of the expressive arts to promote the well-being of Marshallese communities and the resilience of Marshallese culture
- create an opportunity for art and artistic resources specifically focused on Marshallese culture to be incorporated into the RMI’s national curriculum
- build research and teaching capacity within the Marshallese education system
- build capacity within the Marshallese creative economy, and explore the potential for the RMI to join the robust network of professional indigenous artists and arts educators that extends throughout Oceania
- gain insights into displacement, community well-being, and cultural resilience to share with Marshallese policy-makers and with scholars researching other displaced communities
The project’s outcomes so far:
- ran creative arts workshops in the RMI and Hawaii, and collected and analysed data from the responses of workshop participants
- ran specialised workshops in teaching literature and the graphic novel for trainee teachers at the RMI campus of the University of the South Pacific
- circulated teaching resource packs to the 150 schools in the RMI
- produced reports for circulation to the RMI Ministry of Education and Department of Health
- commissioned new creative works from poet Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner and artist Solomon Enos
- produced academic research offering insights relevant to other regional and global contexts of displacement
- made the visual artwork and poetry produced by young Marshallese people and artists working with MAP available to a wider Pacific and international audience, via a symposium at the University of the South Pacific, print publications, and this website
Giff Johnson wrote an article about MAP’s visit to the Majuro Cooperative School, ‘Art at the heart of solving issues’, The Marshall Islands Journal (Friday 23 June 2017): 19.
The Okeanos Foundation gave its perspective on the MAP in a blog post of 28 February 2018: http://okeanos-foundation.org/okeanos-marshall-islands-brings-educational-partnerships-to-rmis-most-remote-communities/.