In partnership with the International Writing Program at University of Iowa, Liljestrand Foundation launched the Margins of the Sea preview summit in May 2019, which introduced programs that value peace, greater global awareness and environmental stewardship from the perspective of the arts and culture.  

The Pacific: Where Nature and Geopolitics Intersect

It is conventionally accepted that the Pacific will be the stage for some kind of confrontation between the United States and China, or one of her proxies.  But what if other forces were at work, more dangerous still, and with consequences likely to affect everyone around the planet’s largest and most important ocean?

Simon Winchester, OBE, a British writer, journalist and broadcaster, has spent his career as a correspondent in the UK, US, Middle East, South America and Asia. In 1997, he moved to New York and penned the New York Times best-seller, The Professor and the Madman. He now works entirely as an author having written many successful non-fiction titles including Pacific, Krakatoa and The Map that Changed the World. Mr. Winchester was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire ‘for services to journalism and literature’ in 2006.

The program began with a Hawaiian oli by Davianna Pomaika’i McGregor, who also introduced Simon Winchester.  She is a noted historian of Hawai’i, founding member of the Ethnic Studies Department at University of Hawaii at Manoa, and very involved in cultural stewardship of lands on Oahu, Moloka’i and the island of Kanaloa Kaho’olawe.  

Mahalo to the Margins of the Sea Preview Summit partners: East-West Center at University of Hawai`i, Halekulani, Honolulu Museum of Art, Matsunaga Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution at University of Hawai`i, Paiko, Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture and Design, and Bintang Beer.