Denver Public Library Small Island Big Song

The Denver Public Library recommends these library resources to enhance your experience of Small Island Big Song.

 

READ

The first title, Oceania: the Shape of Time diverges from many traditional approaches to Oceanic art that categorize it by region, including the multiple island communities contained within Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia, and instead considers the connections between all Austronesian-speaking peoples, whose ancestral homes span Southeast Asia, Australia, Papua New Guinea, and the island archipelagos of the North and East Pacific. The other title is Denver Art Museum: Collection Highlights so readers can use the book to see some of the works in person.  

WATCH 

The Disappearing of Tuvalu: Trouble In Paradise, by Christopher Horner and Gilliane Le Gallic 

This documentary about contemporary life in the tiny South Pacific country of Tuvalu chronicles the earth's first sovereign nation faced with total destruction due to the effects of global warming. With a population of about 11,000 people living on a landmass of only 20 square miles—less than the size of Manhattan—Tuvalu has been inhabited for more than four millenia. Stream it on Kanopy, free to all Denver residents with your library card.

LISTEN 

The Rough Guide to Music Without Frontiers (2014) 

Exploring the voices of indigenous people in reaction to climate change and cultural rights, The Rough Guide to Music Without Frontiers highlights folk music from the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO). Like the dynamic production Small Island Big Song, these folk songs utilize music powerfully to preserve cultural heritage.

DOWNLOAD 

Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia by Christina Thompson

Follow the unique diaspora of Polynesians, a subset of the island people in Small Island Big Song. Polynesians are the most widely dispersed people in the world from before the era of mass migration.The first European explorers puzzled over how early Polynesian seafarers roamed hundreds of miles between isolated islands. The mystery is solved through DNA analysis, oral histories, and experimental voyagers who recreated the adventurous sea journeys, all accounted in this absorbing account.