Following the stars

This chapter offers an artistic form of conversing immersed in listening with maritime economies in the Seto Inland Sea. Our methodology focuses on islands as a practice of decentralising nation states, recentring creative spaces, and grassroots knowledge-sharing, inspired by the thinking, writing, and actions of many island-based artists and theorists from around the world. We centre the process of aquapelagic thinking, where craft is a verb, crafting together with sea-based livelihoods to reconnect ancient cultural traditions with contemporary creative practices and more-than-human ecosystems. Aquapelago is a wet experience we ourselves engage as practitioners with other craftspeople including a sailor, surfer, and writers in saltwater swims; rain downpours; and small watercraft rides. Our work seeks alternate methods for artists and curators to work in non-hierarchical ways in the 21st century: to work slower; reside on islands; share decision-making power with locals; contribute positively to communities; and avoid cycles of developing concepts, relationships, and artworks in service of their short-term exhibition for an ambiguous or tourist-focused general public. This work is a mode of participatory art, self-learning, and grassroots education, navigating towards community building. We navigate by following the stars of our island ancestors to find expanded forms of knowledge shared in this chapter through storytelling as a method for decolonising material knowledge.