Native Seas: Students and Relatives of Papa Mau Visit the Bay Area
A special week-long series of events, presented as part of BCNM's Indigenous Technologies program, New Media & Oceans program, and Art, Technology, and Culture Colloquium, supported by the Chancellor's Advisory Committee for Student Services (CACSS), co-sponsored by the Townsend Center for the Humanities, and in collaboration with the Critical Pacific Islands Studies Collective (CPISC) and the Pacific Islander (PI) Initiative
with Students and Relatives of Papa Mau Piailug
Traditional Navigators from the Northern Mariana Islands
From March 9 to 13, 2026, we will be hosting our Native Seas Workshop Series, a week-long educational program curated by Sophia Perez, Indigenous Technologies coordinator and UC Berkeley PhD, and coordinated in collaboration with the Critical Pacific Islands Studies Collective (CPISC) and the Pacific Islander (PI) Initiative, that will bring several traditional navigators, including students and relatives of Papa Mau Piailug, from the Northern Mariana islands to the Bay Area. These distinguished navigation teachers will be traveling from across the Pacific, representing the only two remaining schools of traditional Pacific navigation and carrying forward ancient knowledge systems that have guided oceanic travel for centuries without modern instruments. As teachers, their work is foundational to keeping the ancient art of traditional navigation alive, and they will be visiting UC Berkeley to foster intellectual exchange and create visibility for Pacific Islander and Indigenous communities.
Pacific Studies scholar Dr. Damon Salesa observed that, prior to Western contact, not one of the over 1,000 Pacific Island languages contained a word for “the Pacific”— this was because, to Indigenous Pacific Islanders, "the Pacific" was not a place. Each island culture created and belonged to their own, distinct reaches of the Pacific, defined in part by their voyaging traditions and techniques. Salesa calls these lived oceanic regions “Native Seas,” which “blanketed the inhabited Pacific, like an intricate weave of maritime places, constantly being made and unmade, with Islanders holding all of it together with warp- and weft-like voyages.”
By embracing Salesa’s PI-centered Native Seas framework, this workshop series intends to explore and celebrate the perseverance of ancient seafaring knowledge in our modern era, where oceanic worlds are sustained not only through traditional voyaging, but also through new technologies spanning from airplanes to planetariums.
Planned public events include a keynote lecture on campus, a celestial navigation presentation at CalAcademy, a traditional boat-building workshop, and more. Stay tuned for dates, times, and further details soon!
Accessibility
BCNM events are free and open to the public. This event will be held in-person, on and off the UC Berkeley campus. We strive to meet all access and accommodation needs. Please contact info.bcnm [at] berkeley.edu with requests or questions.
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