KOOZ The project The Coral Parliament takes the island nation of Tuvalu as its site. What prompted this choice and what questions does the project seek to raise / address?

JASON LI & HAOGE (STEVEN) GANThe Pacific island-nation of Tuvalu, consisting of three reef islands and six coral atolls inhabited by 12,000 people is disappearing under the sea. With an alarming rate of sea-level rise — at 3.9 mm per year (twice the global average) due to global warming — the nation is confronting the grim reality of its imminent submergence. At the United Nations Convention on Climate Change, during the COP27 climate summit, Tuvalu's Minister, Simon Kofe, addressed the assembled delegates, emphasising the need to prepare for his country's survival: "Our land, our ocean, our culture are the most precious assets of our people and to keep them safe from harm, no matter what happens in the physical world, we will move them to the cloud," he asserted.

In the midst of a climate crisis and social upheaval caused by unilateral actions, Tuvalu stands as a place to rethink sovereignty concerning society, culture, and the environment. What truly defines a nation? Is it the land it occupies, the people who inhabit it, or the intricate network of economic activities? Epeli Hau'ofa, in his work "Our Sea of Islands," argued that the worldview of the people of Oceania extends far beyond the conventional notion of land-defined nationhood prevalent in modern continental thinking. He emphasised that:

“Their universe comprised not only land surfaces, but the surrounding ocean as far as they could traverse and exploit it, the underworld with its fire-controlling and earth-shaking denizens, and the heavens above with their hierarchies of powerful gods and named stars and constellations that people could count on to guide their ways across the seas. Their world was anything but tiny.”¹

Recognising ourselves as part of a broader ecosystem, we embarked on a project exploring the interspecies relationship between the people of Tuvalu and the corals that are crucial to the formation and maintenance of the atolls. The corals, as 'indigenous' inhabitants of these lands, have existed for millions of years before humans have arrived. Serving as natural archives, corals document the history of Tuvalu through environmental changes over time. Our project began with the question: How do humans position themselves within the larger Coral Urbanity?

KOOZ The project explores Tuvalu’s social structure as a coral urbanism — could you expand on this notion?

JL & HSGFounded on and by the coral reefs, Tuvalu inherits a deep historical, social, and cultural connection to the coral colonies, which shaped the country’s way of living with water, the people’s identities, and their understanding of the land and world. The close proximity with the water and corals have encoded the community with specific fishery techniques and tools that allowed them to thrive with the reef, while the reef nurtured the local marine ecosystem. In addition, the corals performed as eco-signifiers that constantly informed the locals of marine health. More than temporary archives, the corals also embodied long term histories of environmental change within its annual bands², that stored information about the earth even before the existence of humans.

KOOZ Faced with imminent submergence, Tuvalu must consider the question of what and how to preserve. How does the project position the coral colonies of Tuvalu?

JL & HSG In their updates for COP28, the Tuvalu government unveiled a plan to employ blockchain technology for preserving the identities of all Tuvaluan citizens and creating an archive of digitised material and immaterial cultural artefacts. Simon Kofe described it as a digital ark, a vessel built for crisis, designed to carry the very soul of Tuvalu, and preserve the essence of the nation.

As we understand Tuvalu’s social structure as a Coral Urbanism, where humans are just one of the ‘actors’ or inhabitants who also rely immensely on the reef ecology, the project highlights the need to recognize, recover, and care for the coral colonies in Tuvalu, as its living entities not only constitute archives of Tuvaluan traditions, eco-social practices, and knowledge, but are also fundamental to the preservation of its physical landmass and national sovereignty.

With understanding of the deep connection between Tuvalu and coral reefs, the preservation of coral colonies at Tuvalu means the preservation of the relationship between Tuvalu and its reefs, which has constituted many of Tuvalu’s spiritual, social, and cultural identities, such as their traditional water knowledge, relationships established with water, fishing practices and tools specific to the reef, and sovereign borders should corals take over and inhabit majority of the landmass with sea level rise in the future. This perspective urges a reevaluation of our understanding of life's interconnectedness, where every element, from the microscopic to the planetary, is entwined in a complex dance of existence.

KOOZ How does the project reinterpret the structure of the parliament? What medium does it explore to ensure that all voices, both human and non-human, are heard?

JL & HSGIn the exhibition “Making Things Public" curated by Bruno Latour, he questioned what constitutes the political and asked what these things actually are and they come about and are made public. As said by him: “politics is not just an arena, a profession, or a system, but a concern for things brought to the attention of the fluid and expansive constituency of the public.” Latour conceptualises the parliament as a political assemblage, a place where the 'ding’(a German term that translates to 'things' but also conveys the notion of issues or matters of concern) resides. It is within this space, surrounded by a multitude of actors—both human and non-human—that negotiation, evaluation, and action occur.³

Bridging Bruno Latour's theoretical exploration in "Making Things Public" with practical environmental action, the main embodiment of the “parliament” is proposed as an extension structure, with a series of interventions, reaching out from a patch reef 500 metres from Fongafale. This extension serves multiple purposes: habitat for corals, coral data collection, gene bank, and spaces for various stakeholders to engage with and understand the corals. The interventions incorporated on and around the bridge serve as key mediums for giving voice to the corals. These include the coral radio, where the corals 'speak'; the coral theatre, where the corals 'show'; and the coral lab, where the corals 'record'. The recorded information also contributes to the constant updating of the Coral IDs, which allows the corals to represent themselves both locally and internationally. The formal coral parliamentary space will be located at the end of the bridge that connects to the patch reef, where discussions on coral issues will take place with coral participation and presence. Over time, as sea levels rise to a point that may ultimately engulf the sandy lands of Tuvalu and displace its people, the structure would become solely occupied by corals and marine life. It would then act as a demarcation of Coral sovereignty in Tuvalu, maintaining land ownership for its inhabitants: the coral reefs, marine life, and Tuvaluans.

KOOZ On November 9, 2023, Australia and Tuvalu signed an unprecedented cooperation agreement, known as the Falepili Union, offering 280 Tuvaluans permanent residency in Australia each year. In addition to the latter, Australia will provide US$11 million to the Tuvalu Coastal Adaptation Project, a forty-year land reclamation and coastal-strengthening project already receiving US$36 million from the Green Climate Fund. To what extent does the climate crisis require supranational agreements and an understanding that, at the end of the day, we are all planetary citizens? What role can architecture hold in this?

JL & HSGThe idea of sovereign national agreements and associated platforms already exists and they are operating with large presences. Organisations such as the United Nations have established vast networks of sovereignty and ideas of “world laws” that govern national bodies and super powers with climate implications. There seems that the need for an authoritarian entity that moderates each nation in fostering agreements - the idea of ‘unity’ - in this climate conversation is inevitable. However, the concept that all humans are a part of this ‘community with a shared future’ in the face of the climate crisis is a flawed belief that detaches nature and its inhabitants.

The earth is a home, not only to animals, but also to non-animalistic life forms or ‘the other’. ‘The other’, including but not limited to corals, that “have no need for the mediation of other beings in order to survive… They require nothing but the world, nothing but reality in its most basic components: rocks, water, air, light.” As Emanuele Coccia describes in “The Life of Plants”, the world - from the particle at the absolute centre of the earth to the edge of the atmosphere - can be understood as a mixture of liquidity, whereby to “breathe” (organically or not) by one is to influence everything else. The world is understood as one collective, “the absolute container”. This notion of the “world” surpasses the idea of ‘planetary citizens’ but ponders the idea of ‘atmospheric oneness’ - ‘One’, is to many, is to one.⁴

In order to grasp and to apply this thinking of ‘oneness’ within the “atmospheric catastrophe”, the first and most obvious step is to soften and blur the trans-species boundaries, and we believe architecture can be empowered as facilitators and mediums for such a transformative paradigm. Architecture is to strive for unity and equality, not only for humans, minority groups, and the oppressed, but also to abridge humans with the nonhumans in order to provoke conversations of non-anthropocentric perspectives through the understanding of interdependencies between all.

Bio

Haoge (Steven) Gan currently pursues a Master of Architecture at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. His research interests delve into the intricate tensions that exist between ecology, economy, and politics, spanning a diverse scale from microorganisms to the cosmic level. In 2022 he participated in the editorial and research of the expanded edition of Handbook of Tyranny with Theo Deutinger. He has previously worked as a designer, researcher and curator in Austria, Portugal and China.

Jason Li is presently in the process of fulfilling the requirements for his Master of Architecture degree at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. He is profoundly interested in investigating architecture as a systemic entity intertwined with spatial and social justice, and comprehending how architecture can function as a catalyst for positive societal transformation. Jason has garnered professional experience at firms such as Hassell Studio and Kengo Kuma & Associates. These engagements have afforded him exposure to collaborative and innovative methodologies within the realm of large-scale architectural projects, thereby shaping his perspective on the dynamic role of architecture in effectively addressing complex societal challenges.

The Data Mourning clinic at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation is led by Farah Alkhouri and Marina Otero. The Data Mourning clinic analyzes the case of the Pacific island-nation of Tuvalu that, due to global warming and sea-level rise, is confronting the grim reality of its imminent submergence. Faced with the loss of their tangible homeland, the people of Tuvalu are seeking refuge within the digital sphere. During the COP27 climate summit, Tuvalu's Minister announced their plans to become a fully virtual and digitized nation by transferring itself to the metaverse. As we witness the unraveling of worlds, the possibility of Tuvalu's digital twin opens questions on how to address the fragility of environments and communities, their care, custodianship, preservation and eventual loss in the face of the climate catastrophe. The Data Mourning clinic at GSAPP aims to analyze the impacts of the climate catastrophe in Tuvalu and to design strategies to care for and safeguard its intricate tapestries of social, cultural, and environmental relationships that have defined this territory for centuries.

Special thanks to whom have generously guided the completion of the project: Marina Otero Verzier, Farah Alkhoury and Nobuko Nakamura.