Native Seas: Traditional Micronesian Navigators Visit the Bay Area

From March 9 to 12, 2026, the Berkeley Center for New Media (BCNM) will be hosting our Native Seas series, a week-long educational program curated by Sophia Perez, Indigenous Technologies coordinator and UC Berkeley PhD, and presented 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.

Planned public events include:

The Ancient Art of Voyaging: A Night with Traditional Master Navigators of Micronesia

Monday, March 9, at 7pm - California Academy of Science's Morrison Planetarium, San Francisco

Experience a glimpse into the realm of traditional master navigators of Micronesia, as they humbly share stories of stars, voyages, navigation, and the enduring quest to keep their ancient knowledge, practices, and legacy alive. Witness CalAcademy’s Morrison Planetarium transformed into an immersive celestial map, as the presenters share traditional seafaring methods, star and constellation identification, and Indigenous scientific knowledge systems, offering a rare opportunity to learn about the Pacific region outside of a colonial perspective.

Keynote Lecture with Traditional Navigators

Wednesday, March 11, at 5pm - Grimes Engineering Center's Jarvis Auditorium, Berkeley

Bridging history, arts, and oceanic wisdom, the navigators visit the UC Berkeley campus to share their experiences as representatives of the only remaining schools of traditional Pacific navigation. Join us as they present their ancient knowledge systems and cosmology, share incredible firsthand accounts of seafaring voyages, and discuss their collective efforts to preserve their cultural heritage.

Traditional Boat-Making Workshop

Thursday, March 12, at 1pm - Waterside Workshops' Berkeley Boathouse, Berkeley

Join us at Waterside Workshops' Berkeley Boathouse as we unveil two five-foot model canoes commissioned especially for this weeklong celebration: one constructed using traditional methods and materials, and one with 3-D printed thermoplastics! The two expert makers of the canoes will present their techniques, dive into the rich and enduring history of Carolinian and Chamorro boat-building, and explore what Indigenous and new technologies can learn from one another.

-

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.

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 Arts Research Center (ARC), the Townsend Center for the Humanities, the Department of History, the Asian American and Pacific Islander Transpacific Futures Initiative, and in collaboration with the Critical Pacific Islands Studies Collective (CPISC) and the Pacific Islander (PI) Initiative

About Indigenous Technologies

Indigenous Technologies is a program of BCNM that engages questions of technology and new media in relation to global structures of indigeneity, settler colonialism, and genocide in the 21st century. Our Indigenous Tech events and ongoing conversations with Indigenous scholars and communities aim to critically envision and reimagine what a more just and sustainable technological future can look like. We highlight Indigenous engagements with robotics, computer science, telecommunications, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, social media, online activism, video games, and more.

Accessibility

BCNM events are free and open to the public. These events 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.