The Pacific ring is a 40,000 km long line snaking around the edges of this vast oceanic basin. Known for circum-Pacific zones of volcanic and seismic activity, the Pacific ring is a contingent, geological entity that overlaps mineral frontiers of copper, gold, zinc, tin, mercury, uranium, and other rare earth metals. The line is also a threshold condition–that links the littoral to the insular, surface, and submarine depths, deep time and human history-opening up a fluid, juridical imaginary of Oceania, linking the region’s environmental histories of decolonization and militarization to current ecological crisis.

Unfolded Pacific expands the notion of environmental crime on the planetary scale. It includes conflict terrestrial mines, deep sea mining, sites of nuclear weapons tests and terrestrial and marine nuclear waste sites. Mapped over 4 by 1.5 meters plexi sheet it deliberately uses a military mapping aesthetic of a plotting room.