Papahanaumokuakea

In the middle of the Pacific lies a sandy island, where seabirds and humans mingle in a process of renewal and soul-searching.  A place where the middle of nowhere becomes not only the middle of somewhere, but the heart of everything.

Midway Atoll is a place of ancient power. A revered elder in a long dynasty of fire that once stretched from Kure Atoll to Kaua’i.  Flowers of molten lava that bloomed and decayed with the long seasons of geology, and left a marine landscape strewn with exquisite petals of azure.

In the Hawaiian tradition, the rosary of atolls that form the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands represents a long lineage of Kupuna, ancestors, that live a solitary life, like hermits, in the heart of  Papahanaumokuakea,  the place where the union of Papa, the mother Earth, and Wakea, the paternal sky, “gives birth to the islands in the vast expanses”.  For the natives, this long line of small islands is not only the umbilical cord to their past, but also a series of stepping stones along an ancient route that leads their souls to the netherworld.  Leaping from island to island, the spirits of the dead advance westwards towards their meeting with Po, the great darkness, where they reunite with their dead relatives.

Understanding the significance of Midway in the Hawaiian tradition has added many layers of meaning to our journey.  Layers that fit together perfectly, even if we look at Midway from a literal perspective.  After all, the Hawaiian view of this island as an old elder has been corroborated by geology; and the notion that this place is a living organism fits perfectly with James Lovelock’s theories.

MidwayJourney_Manuel_Maqueda_day3 1As for the souls and spirits that inhabit this place, they are present in every decaying building, in every trembling blade of grass that breaks through the tarmac of an abandoned runway, and in every glorious sunset over the turquoise waters of the lagoon.  Even those who don’t believe in the supernatural often feel a chill going down their spine when a white tern flutters and swoops over their heads, so close that one can feel a delicate whiff of warm wind with every flap of their wings of pure white.

And yet Midway is a land raped and tortured by man. A land destroyed, rebuilt, exploited, deformed and, these days, covered with rotting carcasses of albatross chicks full of plastic.  It is a hub for an intricate web of messages and  symbols that we came here to explore.  A place for witnessing, a place for learning, and a place, perhaps, for redemption.

I write these lines as we leave behind the middle point of our journey, and enter our final week on the island. By degrees, the pressure of accomplishing the tangible goals of our expedition is subsiding. And simultaneously, I feel the urgency to pursue and share the intangible.

I hope that sharing with you the significance of Midway in the Hawaiian tradition is a good place to start.  After all, who would have thought that here, where the union of Papa and Wakea gave birth to a tiny island in the vast expanses, the middle of nowhere could become not only the middle of somewhere, but also the beginning of everything?

-Manuel Maqueda

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Midway through the lens of Kittipong Janthasang

A large percentage of the permanent residents of Midway are Thai workers, hired by a company called Chugach which provides many services to the island, from maintenance, to food and lodging.

kittipong_1Kittipong Janthasang is a Bangkok native who has lived on Midway for three years. We can find him pulling invasive weeds from the fields and also bartending at the island’s only pub during its brief hours of operation. Kittipong’s passion, however, is wildlife photography. In his spare time, he goes out with his camera and patiently and delicately captures intimate portraits of the natural beauty of Midway. Amazing photos that, until now, were confined to his laptop, and shared only with his friends on the island. It has been an honor for us at Midway Journey to discover the excellent body of photographic work by Kittipong, and to have the opportunity to post a selection of his images online for the first time, in the form of this slide show.

Kittipong’s photographic work conveys a contagious, heartfelt reverence for nature, and offers the viewer a rare and invaluable look into the immense natural wealth of Midway.

Photography by Kittipong Janthasang. Slide Show edited by Jan Vozenilek.  Music by Christen Lien.

Those interested in Kittipong’s photography can contact him at kittipong-p at hotmail dot com.

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The Best Gear Possible

Capturing high-resolution images thousands of miles from a camera store means having the best tools possible and a lot of redundancy. In this clip, Bill Weaver profiles some of the technology Chris Jordan has brought to Midway.

Video by Bill Weaver

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Summary of Day 7, by Chris Jordan

Chris Jordan summarizes our visit to Eastern island on day 7 of our Journey, and shows 2 minute’s worth of plastic collected at random on the beach by him and Victora Sloan Jordan.

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Reflections from Midway

Dear friends,

I thought I’d check in at the halfway point of our trip. First of all, greetings! I wish I could snap my fingers and you would all appear here with us.

In terms of my photographic work so far, my primary feeling is one of anxious urgency. What I am seeing through my viewfinder is amazing—everything I had hoped for, and much more. The albatross carcasses are astonishingly beautiful and visually complex, each one offering a slightly different view into the intricate architecture of these magnificent creatures. The pieces of plastic in their body cavities—cigarette lighters, bottle caps, pens, toothbrushes, and lots of other brightly colored plastic chunks, juxtapose like colors in a painting against the rich palettes of neutral tones in the birds’ decaying feathers and bones. Aesthetically, I hope that the images I am capturing will carry the same kind of uncomfortable desolate beauty that my other work has explored.

The part that makes me anxious is that I have no idea what is actually being recorded on my memory cards. I feel clumsy working with my new digital camera system. My hands lack fluency with the knobs and buttons; the menus don’t come naturally to my thought process; and I don’t know if I am getting the fine focus and the exposures correct. What I do know is that this equipment will produce outrageously high quality images if I get the settings right. Fingers crossed!

A couple of days ago I discovered a huge pile of several thousand albatross carcasses sequestered in a remote meadow. We figured they must be all the birds that had died around the living quarters, moved to a place where they can decompose naturally, away from the island village. The pile is a couple of feet deep and about twenty feet square, with thousands upon thousands of wings, skulls, rib cages, feathers, and bones, all mixed and permeated with a shocking amount of plastic junk.

It is a horrific and moving sight, evocative of images of mass graves from wars, more visually intense than anything I had expected to find here. I devoted a whole day to photographing the pile, and plan to return several times more. In terms of experiencing the depth of the tragedy we came here to witness, this is the heart of darkness of our journey. I feel overwhelmed and numbed by it, and I also sense that if there is any kind of breakthrough in our process to be attained on this trip, this pile represents the portal through which we must pass.

This Monday, September 21st, marks the autumnal equinox, a middle place in our yearly circuit around the sun, halfway between the days of longest darkness and longest light. On that day, at noon Midway time (four hours earlier than Pacific time), our team will return to the pile. Our shared intention is to connect as deeply as we can with the profound story that these birds have to tell. Please remember us on that day, and hold our process in your thoughts, as we will hold you in ours.

~cj

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Photography Ethics

The amount of plastic objects that we are finding inside of the albatross carcasses that cover Midway Island is so shocking that it might be hard to believe.

As soon as we landed on the island, we all agreed to adhere to a strict work ethic that is summarized in these three rules:

  • No plastic added.  We never add any additional plastic to any images or compositions. What you’ll see it what was there.
  • No rearranging. The plastic contents of the rib cages are not rearranged in any way.
  • OK to remove. We allow ourselves to occasionally remove from the frame a few objects that might obstruct the view, such as twigs, feathers, grass leaves, or pieces of plastic from the top layer.

Chris Jordan explains these rules in more detail in the following video.

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Midway Brushstrokes

Midway is a place suspended in time and in space.  On this tiny island, the visitor is gently transported into a state of wonder which becomes a portal for instrospection.  Cinematographer Jan Vozenilek has used his camera to sketch the subtle timelessness of Midway in a short video that we want to share with all of you.    

Video by Jan Vozenilek. Music by Vanessa LeBourdais.

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The Power of Midway

Film director Bill Weaver talks about the ways the members of the Midway Team are bonded with one another, and with the power of nature that surrounds them on Midway.

Music by Christen Lien www.itsnotaviolin.com


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A Musical Postcard

Today we received a musical postcard from our friend Jeff Vander Clute in California. We were touched by it and wanted to share it with all of you. Thank you Jeff.

Midway

A bird majestic falls out of the sky
At the edge of paradise
The edge of night
It’s a look into our future

Plastic bags and bottle caps
The legions are now arrayed
Look at the death we’ve made
Poisoned oceans flow in our veins
It’s a look into the future
Have a look into our future

There’s a message in a ketchup bottle
And action figures discarded after play
What’s a lighter to you
Is the end of a light that flew

That which kills the albatross
Will be visited upon us

It’s the end of the Plastic Age
It’s the new battle for Midway
At the end of the Plastic Age
It’s the new battle for today

Another bird majestic falls out of the sky
At the edge of paradise
The edge of night
This is a look into our future

Music and Lyrics by Jeff Vander Clute



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Midway Trash-a-Thon

Chris and Manuel find comic relief as they rummage through a pile of plastic garbage collected on the beaches of Midway Island.

Video by Jan Vozenilek

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