The remote Kermadec Islands lie in the heart of one of the world’s great ocean wilderness areas. The 620,000-square kilometre Kermadec region, located between New Zealand and Tonga, is home to whales and turtles, sharks, seabirds, fish, and deep-sea marine life. It also contains underwater volcanoes and a deep-sea trench, making the islands a hotspot for some of the most geologically active and biologically unusual features on the planet.

With so many environmental riches, the Kermadecs are an area worthy of our protective stewardship. In May 2011, the Pew Environment Group’s Global Ocean Legacy campaign organized an artists’ voyage to the Kermadecs. Partnering with the Royal New Zealand Navy and New Zealand Department of Conservation, Pew provided an opportunity for nine artists to experience the vast Kermadec region. This catalogue records this voyage of artists and the works they produced.

At the core of this project is the artists’ desire to articulate the issues that face the Kermadecs and the urgent need to safeguard the Earth’s marine environment.