Nauru celebrates its national pavilion day at the World Expo in Shanghai 2010.
Manila, Philippines – Nauru celebrates its National Day today. Located in the Western Pacific Ocean, Nauru is an oval-shaped island which is located 42 kilometers south of the equator. The island is the world’s smallest island nation, just 21 square kilometers. The nearest country to Nauru is Kiribati, whose Ocean Island is 350 kilometers to the east. The island was initially named “Pleasant Island” by English visitors in the 18th century. The present inhabitants of Nauru are of mixed Polynesian, Micronesian, and Melanesian races. About four-fifths of the people are Christians. Nauruans and English are the main languages.
During the first half of the 20th century, Nauru was a “rentier state,” a term to describe those states whose national revenues are mostly derived from renting indigenous resources to external clients. These Nauruan resources came from phosphate reserves. As early as 1907, Nauru was a major exporter of phosphate. However, in the 1980s, the phosphate deposits ran out after numerous years of mining.
Nauru is a member of various regional and international organizations. These include the United Nations, Pacific Islands Forum, the South Pacific Regional Environmental Program, Commonwealth of Nations, and the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission.
Commercial and agricultural exchanges have been active between the Philippines and Nauru. The linguistic, religious, and ethnic affinities between our two peoples are responsible for the close bilateral relations.
We greet the people and government of Nauru led by H.E., President Sprent Dabwido, on the occasion of its National Day. We wish them the best and success in all their endeavors. MABUHAY!
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January 31st - Nauru National Day
The Nauru Project Workshop @ Frown Tails, ReMap KM 3
Workshop
Saturday 24/9/2011
www.nauruproject.blogspot.com
RSVP to info@frowntails.com
The Nauru Project is an on-going artists' collaboration based on the South Pacific island of Nauru, the world's smallest island nation. The project involves exchanging information on the history of the island and other related subjects as well as the creation of artworks as a result of this pool of findings.
The workshop will focus on examining online findings relating to Nauru and its history in relation to colonialism and the West as well as other links and information relevant to island themes, self-declared micro-nations, experimental states, artists’ residencies and projects on islands as well as fictional islands and non-territorial internet states.
Maria Georgoula will present the project’s collaborators, ongoing research, artistic function and its relationship to the internet while participants of the workshop will then be invited to trace their individual online path around above subjects while using the blog as a basis and while being guided by the artist. The purpose of the project will be exploring the material provided, creating new links and enriching it by contributing their own findings and sharing their own approach to the above themes with the rest of the group in the form of discussion and presentations.
Recycled Island
P.O.Box 11087, 3004EB Rotterdam, Netherlands
Recycled island is a proposal to make a new floating island, from the existing plastic waste that is floating in our Oceans.
Recycled island is a research project on the potential of realizing a habitable floating island in the Pacific Ocean made from all the plastic waste that is momentarily floating around in the ocean.
The proposal has three main aims; Cleaning our oceans from a gigantic amount of plastic waste; Creating new land; And constructing a sustainable habitat. Recycled island seeks the possibilities to recycle the plastic waste on the spot and to recycle it into a floating entity. The constructive and marine technical aspects take part in the project of creating a sea worthy island.
The main characteristics of the island are summarized:
1. Realized from the plastic waste in our Oceans. This will clean our Oceans intensely and it will change the character of the plastic waste from garbage to building material. The gathering of the plastic waste will become a lot more attractive.
2. The island is habitable, where it will have its value as land capturing and is a potential habitat for a part of the rising amount of climate refugees.
3. The habitable area is designed as an urban setting. Nowadays already half of the World population lives in urban conditions, which has a huge impact on nature. The realization of mixed-use environments is our hope for the future.
4. The island is constructed as a green living environment, from the point of view of a natural habitat. The use of compost toilets in creating fertile ground is an example in this.
5. It is a self sufficient habitat, which is not (or hardly) depending from other countries and finds its own resources to survive. The settlement has its own energy and food sources.
6. The island is ecologic and not polluting or affecting the world negatively. Natural and non polluting sources are used to let the island exist in harmony with nature.
7. The size of the floating city is considerable in relation to the huge amount of plastic waste in the Ocean. The largest concentration of plastic has a footprint the size of France and Spain together. Starting point is to create an island with the coverage of 10.000Km2. This is about the size of the island Hawaii.
8. The location is the North Pacific Gyre, where at this moment the biggest concentration of plastic waste is discovered. This is geographically a beautiful spot North-East to Hawaii. By recycling and constructing directly on the spot with the biggest concentration of plastic waste, long transports are avoided. Because of the floating character the position could eventually be altered.
