Kirk Pearson '17

Summer 2016

Sea Change

From June to August, Kirk will live abroad a ferry crossing the Java Sea and chronicle his experience along the 4,500-mile trip across the archipelago, during which he will be recording 360-degree video and binaural audio. After spending his last Winter Term in Indonesia on the documentary Fin, which traced the tuna supply chain from Sumatra to Tokyo, Kirk will return to Indonesia and continue to work with Patrick Gilfether ‘15, Shansi Fellow in Aceh, to examine the Java Sea and Indonesian Coral Triangle. They aspire to juxtapose these two incredible ecosystems through narratives from people most affected by Indonesia’s maritime developments including sailors, construction workers, and conservationists. The end result will be a series of interactive multimedia pieces that will highlight life above and below water, and as Kirk notes, “Our voyage will take us to key port development projects and vital marine ecosystems (my research area) to tell the story of life at the frontier of anthropogenic climate change.”