Filmed and edited by Jan Vozenilek

Music by Christen Lien

The island will soon be covered with tens of thousands of carcasses like this, as the plastic-filled birds die from starvation, dehydration, and choking.

Video by: Jan Vozenilek

Music by: Christen Lien

Well, not on Midway Atoll. On their second day on the island, Chris Jordan, Jan Vozenilek and the rest of the Midway Journey team are adopted as brothers and sisters by the charismatic albatrosses of Midway. These magnificent creatures inhabit the vast and solitary expanses of the North Pacific. A world of broad horizons, trade winds, passing storm clouds, and hundreds of shades of blue. A space of primeval purity that has changed little for millions of years.

Unchallenged by predators, these masters of the skies are intrigued by the proximity of unfamiliar two-legged creatures. Thus, the examiners become the examined, and the photographers have their lenses scrutinized and pecked by birds so fearless, and open to the possibilities, that instantly awaken the child inside of us.

Video by: Jan Vozenilek

Music by: Christen Lien

Written by: Manuel Maqueda

Midway Journey members Chris Jordan, Manuel Maqueda, Jan Vozenilek and Bill Weaver reunited in May 2010 to attend the Media that Matters conference in Hollyhock, Cortes Island, British Columbia, Canada.

Music by Christen Lien

Video by Jan Vozenilek

A beach cleanup on Midway Atoll made us feel just like Sisyphus.

There are millions of tons of plastics present in our oceans, and these are constantly fragmenting into smaller and smaller pieces which are scattered throughout the water column and present, in different densities, throughout all the worlds oceans.

Contrary to what many people believe, there are no visible islands of trash anywhere –even if some areas, the gyres, accumulate higher densities of plastic pollution. In actuality, what is happening is much more complex and scary: our oceans are becoming a planetary soup laced with plastic.

To make thing worse, these tiny pieces of plastic are extremely powerful chemical accumulators for organic persistent pollutants present in ambient sea water such as DDE‘s and PCB‘s. The whole food chain, invertebrates, fish, sea turtles… are eating plastic and /or other animals who have plastic in them. This means that we are. Like the albatrosses on Midway, we carry the garbage patch inside of us.

Cleaning up this mess is not feasible, technically or economically. Even if all the boats in the world were put to the task somehow, the cleanup would not only remove the plastics but also the plankton, which is the base of the food chain, and is responsible for capturing half of the CO2 of our atmosphere and generating half of the oxygen we need to breathe.

But even if this problem was solved too somehow, the amount of plastic that we could capture, at an immense cost, would be a drop in the bucket as compared to the amount that flows into the ocean every day.

No matter how hard we push, in terms of technology or money, the boulder will be rolling back down the hill, throughout eternity, unless we stop putting more plastics into our environment.

The good news is that we can do this. We can do this now. We need to start a social movement that spreads virally and creates a critical mass of concerned citizens who pledge to move away from our disposable habits, and who raise their voice to reject and reverse a throwaway culture that might be profitable, but whose consequences are intolerable.

Video by Jan Vozenilek
Written and narrated by: Manuel Maqueda
Music by Christen Lien www.itsnotaviolin.com

Click here to see a satellite image of the exact location of this video (click on ‘view map’ and zoom all the way in.)

During our journey, Jan would occasionally steal away from the group, and wander alone in the island with his camera.  The rest of us would wonder where he was, and what kind of footage he would be capturing.

The scenes on Brushstrokes 2 speak of moments of intimacy, where the cinematographer is alone in the field, tuning into the pulse of the land, and letting its natural beauty tell an ancient story of survival and renewal.

In this short video lies a reverence for nature so profound, that our eye has to concentrate on the small details, and peek shyly through blades of grass, lest the direct contemplation of the greatness of it all be overwhelming.  As we watch, we feel the emergence of that peculiar sense wonder that is often thought to belong only to childhood.  A sense of awe and discovery that we are taught to suppress and forget as we grow up.

As time slows down, and the rays of golden light fall gently on the tortured landscape of Midway, subtle brushstrokes of natural beauty are painted over a canvas too many times torn and blotted by the blindness of man.

Video by Jan Vozenilek. Music by Vanessa LeBourdais.

Video by: Jan Vozenilek.  Voiceover: Victoria Sloan Jordan.

Music by Christen Lien

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.

As 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

But amidst all this beautiful Midway magic, Manuel and Chris find that a closer look easily reveals one of the planets biggest hidden threats.

-Jan Vozenilek.

(Video narrated by Manuel Maqueda)

Español: La isla de Midway está rodeada por un impresionante arrecife de coral.  En su costa septentrional, las aguas añiles besan un kilómetro de arenas blancas.

Pero en medio de esta mágica belleza, Manuel y Chris se dan cuenta que una mirada más detallada revela una de las mayores amenazas del planeta.

Vídeo de Jan Vozenilek

Transcripción en español de la narración de Manuel Maqueda

“Hoy hemos llegado a a Midway, y lo primero que hemos hecho tras recibir nuestra charla de orientación ha sido ir a la playa. Al llegar, nos hemos quedado sobrecogidos al contemplar la belleza del lugar y los colores increíbles…. Si embargo, se nos vino el alma a los pies al comprobar que la línea que deja marea alta estaba enteramente cubierta de plástico.  Este trozo de botella ha sido mordisqueado por los peces, está lleno de dentelladas.  Los peces están comiendo plástico, y si ellos los comen, también nosotros.  Y no sólo hay objetos grandes, tambien trocitos diminutos de plástico por todas partes. Si se presta atención, uno se da cuenta que, mezclados con la arena, hay trocitos de plástico por todas partes.  Es increíble pensar que esto ocurre con cada una de las mareas que llegan a esta playa.  Un síntoma del enorme problema que tenemos con el plástico en nuestros mares.

He visto muestras de plástico de la Gran Mancha de Basura del Pacífico y llevo tiempo hablando de este problema y concienciando a la gente, pero al estar aquí, en un lugar tan remoto y tan bello y darme cuenta de lo terrible de la situación…, no ya saberlo, sino verlo con mis propios ojos…. es descorazonador.   Pero me alegro de estar aquí, porque venimos para hacer algo al respecto.”