What happens when a voyage of discovery ends in disaster? This paper considers the aftermath of the shipwreck of the French explorer La Pérouse. La Pérouse was dispatched to the South Seas in 1785 by Louis XVI. Yet by 1788, there was no word of the expedition, whose two ships and over 200 men had disappeared somewhere off the coast of Australia.

Looking to attempts to recover the loss shifts the usual dynamics of imperial knowledge production. This paper focuses especially on Jules Dumont d’Urville, sent to the site of the wreck in the 1820s. Now known as a producer of anthropological knowledge about Melanesian peoples, in looking for the lost vessels, Dumont d’Urville openly depended on Indigenous informants to navigate the region; he depended, further, on the cooperation of the same unpredictable oceanic environment that had led La Pérouse into disaster. Keenly aware of the weakness of his position, Dumont d’Urville’s account of the voyage exposes surprising fractures in European hegemony.

The 1872-76 HMS Challenger expedition is considered a foundational voyage of modern oceanography. As well as the ocean’s depth, temperature, flora, and fauna, it is less well-known that the expedition’s scientists were also tasked with taking ‘every opportunity’ to investigate ‘native races’ during their global circumnavigation. This specifically included ‘obtaining photographs’ of people ‘to one scale’, with the image record particularly focussing on Pacifica communities. Using four photograph albums in the collection of the National Maritime Museum, London, UK, my research has explored not only how these investigations were carried out but also looked to identify some of the individuals pictured. In doing so, I have also revealed how different populations interacted with and aided the Challenger scientists. This work has allowed me to identify some of the previously unnamed individuals within the albums and properly attribute their contributions to the expedition. In conjunction with the museum’s Tangata Moana Advisory Board, comprised of members of the Pacifica community, we have co-created new cataloguing information for images of Pacifica ancestors within the NMM’s Challenger albums and produced a document of image usage guidance. In this paper, I will explore some of the individual histories we have co-curated, showcasing the role of Pacifica ancestors and other individuals in the scientific endeavour of the HMS Challenger expedition. I will also raise questions about the role of images in perpetuating imperialist harms and share how we have been considering these questions at the NMM in collaboration with modern community members.

This paper introduces an enquiry into the coastal heritage cultures in Southeast Asia, focusing on the Riau and Borneo regions. Drawing from visual, cultural, and material studies, as well as architectural history, this paper seeks to raise the following questions: What are the historical pluralities of sea-based living in floating villages, and what insights can be gained from such embodied knowledge that is inherent to local communities who have traditionally lived on water? Understanding coastal (aquapelagic) habitats from a scientific vantage point have been closely linked to the question of documentation and visualisation. However, photographic and filmic approaches from research disciplines such as architectural history, ethnography, anthropology, and sociology have significantly shaped a modernist and continued colonial gaze that is shaped by rationalizing these habitats. These approaches, at times, fail to understand key processual elements embedded in these lived environments. This paper attempts to problematise the post-independence maritime archives of Southeast Asia, looking specifically from the 1950s, and exacting a critical approach of such photographic and filmic studies. Simultaneously, we want to expand the archive into a pluri-vocal perspective that looks into the specific historical pluralities and contemporary experiences of cultural groups who have experienced the seascape across the Malacca Straits and the Riau Archipelago, such as Kampung Air (Malay for “water village”) and sea-based groups on Omadal Island, Sabah, Borneo. The aim is to establish a wider trans-historical perspective expanding current planning of floating cities intended to address sea level rise in Southeast Asia.