In this post, we are happy to feature some work by Maya Weeks, a multimedia artist and independent scholar interested in a range of related topics like marine toxic dumping, oceanic geopolitics, global capitalism, climate change, and ocean trash. She brings together poetry, visual art, essay, and science in configurations that are refreshing and intriguing.

Maya and I have never met in person, but have been corresponding via email for the past six months, sharing the latest facets of our worry and wonder at the marine world and all its entanglements. Amongst the GeoCritique team, one of our greatest hopes for the site is that it can extend nascent connections such as these and bring new dimensions to our conversations. Maya’s work seems to me at least to be an ideal jumping-off point for the kind of undisciplined collaborations and conversations we hope to foster. To borrow from Antonio Benitez-Rojo, himself a great writer on marine worlds, ultimately perhaps such exchanges can help to build a kind of “generalized promiscuity” among different kinds of knowledges, rather than the “legal marriages” of institutionalized interdisciplinarity to which we’ve grown accustomed.[1]

Below, we’ve featured Maya’s self-published chapbook, LOVE IS NOT A SCARCITY ECONOMY. Have a read and please use the comments section to discuss and/or contact Maya. Maya is currently embarking on the Arctic Sea aboard a tall ship, to undertake some research on marine plastics as part of the Arctic Circle Residency, so response time may be delayed, but we’re excited to see the results!

~Jessi

[1] Benitez-Rojo, A. (1992). The repeating island: The Caribbean and the postmodern perspective. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 150.

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