Edited by Natalie King and Francesca Tarocco
The Surrealist Map of the World first appeared in 1929 in a special issue of Varietes, a Belgian periodical dedicated to the movement. Oceania and the Pacifique, rather than the Atlantic Ocean, are depicted at the centre of the drawing. Counter to imperialist and colonialist projections, this expansive mapping provides an alternative vision of the world whereby Oceania is vast and centralised. Perhaps this reorientation foregrounds Epeli Hau‘ofa’s 1994 essay and manifesto “Our Sea of Islands”, reprinted in this special issue of Lagoon-scapes. A Tongan and Fijian writer and anthropologist, his influential essay offers a grassroots view of Oceania, the island states and territories of the Pacific, all of Polynesia and Micronesia, as a place of optimism and largesse.
Copyright: © 2023 Natalie King, Francesca Tarocco. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Source: Venice University Press
