From Island to Ocean: Caribbean and Pacific Dialogues

From Island to Ocean: Caribbean and Pacific Dialogues
^{Curated by Dr. Michelle Stephens
Center for Cultural Analysis at Rutgers, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ.}
Bringing together artists from the Caribbean and the Pacific, From Island to Ocean explored the shared histories and distinct cultural trajectories of archipelagic regions shaped by colonialism, migration, and the sea. Featuring works by Juana Valdés and Fidalis Buehler, the exhibition was presented in conjunction with Rutgers University’s year-long “Archipelagoes” seminar, engaging with Archipelagic American Studies to imagine new dialogues beyond continental frameworks. Through sculpture, installation, and mixed media, the artists traced routes across oceans, mapping the flows of people, goods, and ideas that continue to bind islands into complex global networks.

From Island to Ocean: Caribbean and Pacific Dialogues brought together the work of Caribbean artist Juana Valdés and Pacific Islander artist Fidalis Buehler to explore the shared experiences, intertwined histories, and distinct cultural identities of archipelagic regions across the globe. Presented in conjunction with Rutgers University’s year-long “Archipelagoes” seminar and framed by the theoretical lens of Archipelagic American Studies, the exhibition sought to decontinentalize the study of American culture, moving beyond land-bound perspectives toward the oceanic spaces that have shaped migration, exchange, and cultural memory.

The works on view engaged in a visual dialogue between the Caribbean and the Pacific, revealing resonances and divergences in how island geographies respond to colonial legacies, diasporic movement, and contemporary global networks. My contributions—The Journey Within, Porcelain Boats, photographic works from On the Malecón, and documentation of the related performance—mapped personal and collective histories across maritime routes. These pieces examined the sea as both a connective tissue and a contested site, reflecting on displacement, trade, and the persistence of cultural memory carried across waters.

By placing Caribbean and Pacific visual narratives in conversation, From Island to Ocean invited viewers to consider the ocean not as a border but as a site of circulation, encounter, and transformation. Together, the works of Valdés and Buehler reimagined island spaces as active nodes within a larger global archipelago, offering new ways to think about identity, belonging, and history from the shorelines outward.

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