TE MOANA MERIDIAN: HOW THE PRIME MERIDIAN SHAPES THE WORLD AND THE CASE FOR RELOCATING IT



Sam Hamilton/Sam Tam Ham (b. 1984, Auckland, New Zealand/Tamaki Makaurau, Aotearoa) created Te Moana Meridian as a vessel for proposing a radical new United Nations General 

Assembly Draft Resolution to formally relocate the prime meridian from Greenwich, London, to Te Moana-Nui-a-Kiwa/the South Pacific Ocean. Since its inception at an 1884 conference in 

Washington D.C., the prime meridian has functioned to implicitly serve the ambitions of the British colonial empire. Rather than serving as a "beacon of humanity," the prime meridian today more 

resembles a bygone imperial relic. As an original operatic performance and five-channel video installation, Te Moana Meridian proposes to elect a new "center of the world" while acknowledging 

that doing so has the potential to reframe the dynamics of global power. Hamilton proposes this 

center to be the open waters of Te Moananui-a-Kiwa/the South Pacific Ocean. According to Hamilton, the prime meridian should be "anchored in the global commons and personified by the 

ocean; connective, circulatory, omnipresent, integral to all life. To avoid drowning, we must become the ocean." Te Moana Meridian is curated by Christian Viveros-Fauné, organized by USF 

Contemporary Art Museum.