7 June 2025 -26 October 2025
P’AROWO NO ORORÉ (“Face of Tomorrow” in Nengone, Kanaky New Caledonia) is a speculative journey into the future of humanity and machine. The project envisions a world where the boundaries between human and robot dissolve, giving rise to new forms of identity, ritual, and remembrance.
This series re-question the role of technology in shaping identity and culture. It challenges our collective imagination of what robots currently are and could become—no longer soulless machines, but vessels of memory, diversity, and humanity’s evolving soul. 
Created in collaboration with artists Loan Favan and Stefan Boerkamp, the series draws inspiration from the Pacific Islands—Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia—regions often overlooked and fragmented on the world’s maps.
Loan Favan is a New Caledonian jewelry artist whose work merges Pacific traditions with speculative design and body-focused craft.
Stefan Boerkamp is a Dutch speculative designer exploring the relationship between man and machines.
In this imagined future, as humans evolve into cyborgs or transition entirely into robotic forms, ancestral knowledge, ethnic traits, and spiritual customs face extinction—or transformation.
The heart of P’AROWO NO ORORÉ lies in three sculptural body artefacts:
- ITHU for Melanesia
- WON for Micronesia
- MA’O for Polynesia
Each piece reimagines the robots of tomorrow as vessels of cultural diversity—where identity is no longer worn on the surface but embedded within, merging with flesh, bone, and machine.
ITHU – Inspired by the Kanak people of New Caledonia, part of Melanesia in the Pacific
The word Kanak means “Man” or “Human being”. ‘ITHU’ draws directly from the body painting traditions of the Pilou, a ceremonial dance performed during key life events such as births, marriages, mourning, and times of war. Through rhythmic movement and the sounds of wooden sticks, shells, and bamboo drums, the Pilou unites clans and honors the connection between the living and their ancestors.
The piece take reference in the Kanak origin myth of Téa Kanaké—the first man, born from a rock in the heart of the Pacific, and represented by the lizard. In Kanak cosmology, the lizard symbolizes the genesis of humanity, a motif that also appears in Tahitian legend, where it is linked to the creation of the island Moorea. ‘ITHU’ channels this powerful symbolism, merging mythology and ritual into a futuristic artefact of identity and remembrance.
WON – ‘WON’ draws inspiration from the Marshall Islands—Rālik and Ratak—an island chain in Micronesia made of more than 1,200 small islands across the Northwestern Pacific Ocean.
Deeply connected to the ocean, Marshallese culture is rich with legends and songs that revere the sea turtle, often portrayed as a supernatural being and spiritual guide. A recurring motif across their visual and oral traditions, the turtle symbolizes protection, ancestral wisdom, and guidance, embodying both physical and spiritual resilience. In various Pacific cultures, including Melanesia and Polynesia, turtles are also believed to carry the spirits of ancestors, linking the living with the unseen world.
Traditionally, turtle meat was reserved for ceremonial use and consumed only by chiefs—marking its sacred status and reinforcing its cultural significance. In ‘WON’, the turtle becomes a futuristic totem, reimagined as a protective artefact that safeguards identity and spirit in an evolving, cyborg world.
MA’O – ‘MA’O’ is inspired by the Polynesian people of Tahiti, part of the broader Polynesian triangle in the Pacific.
In Polynesian tradition, tattoos were not merely decorative; they were a powerful form of expression, telling stories and marking identity in a society without written language. The art is filled with distinctive symbols, each carefully placed on the body to reflect an individual’s status, personality, and spiritual journey. The positioning of tattoos was particularly significant, with the head regarded as the point of connection to Rangi, the sky father, making it a space associated with spirituality, wisdom, and intuition.
The legend behind MA’O, meaning shark, speaks to the revered status of the shark across many Pacific Island cultures. The shark is seen not only as a powerful creature but also as a deity, an ancestral manifestation, and a protector for voyagers and fishermen navigating the vast ocean. In Māori tradition, warriors were likened to sharks, invoking their power in battle cries such as: “Kia mate uruora tātou, kei mate-ā-tarakihi” (let us die like white sharks, not tarakihi fish). Similarly, in Papua New Guinea, the practice of calling upon the shark as a divine right establishes a bond that unites the community with the sea, invoking the shark’s strength and protection.
In this piece, ‘MA’O’ embodies the shark as both a guardian spirit and a symbol of wisdom, guiding those who journey into the unknown, both physically and spiritually.