Description

After experimenting on coral in Mo’orea often only their skeletons remain. What else remains from Western coral reef science? Littered in the lagoon are the ghosts experiments past. The recommendations of residents to external scientists are beautiful – they share power and value locally.

The main image on 35mm film, features coral specimens affixed to bottle caps on a water table at the Gump South Pacific Research Station. I transported these corals to the lab after experimenting on them in the lagoon. Removing their live tissue, only their calcium carbonate skeletons were returned to the sea. Layered with this image is a landscape image of Mo'orea taken from the waterfront of the research station. The double-exposed film was digitized; collaged to the right are additional corals I have killed in Mo'orea (bottom corner). Experimental caging material, resembling a mountain (middle right), while a larger coral I killed caged with fertilizer mimics the sun. The recommendations in the caption come from my doctoral research collaboration with Te Pū ‘Ātiti’a.