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haggan betde turtle guam museum

Haggan or Haggan betde in CHamoru is the Green Sea Turtle

Although an endangered and protected species, you can still see haggan in Guam’s waters. They frequent shallow reef areas where they forage for algae and sea grass. The largest haggan can be more than five feet in terms of shell length and weigh more than 700 pounds. They can live to be more than 80 years old.

One of the most amazing facts about the haggan is their ability to return to the beaches where they were born. For example, haggan born in the Mariana Islands, will make voyages sometimes over 1400 miles to the Philippines and Japan to feed and grow. Years later they will return later to the Marianas, to mate and lay eggs at the same beaches where they were born.

Haggan have been in the Marianas for thousands of years, longer than humans. And over that millennia they have been returning to the same beaches where they were born, to lay their eggs, continuing this beautiful cycle of life.

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In her first solo show, Julia Birn presents Chewing on Static. She regards this body of work as an exploration of what it means to live in a life that no longer feels entirely familiar. Ms. Birn uses her work as a way to consider what happens when something changes the way one moves through the world, the relationship with oneself, and understanding of the future, as a result of chronic illness. Her paintings emerge from this unresolved experience, giving shape to the feeling of living with something that cannot always be explained or communicated. Through abstraction, fragmentation, and restricted palettes, the works hold onto that tension, allowing forms to shift and remain ambiguous. What emerges is a reflection of what it is like to live with a reality that has become difficult to recognise. The title of the exhibit, Chewing on Static speaks to the mental noise that comes from searching for clarity, questioning one's own experience, and trying to communicate something that refuses to become simple or certain. It is about what happens when one is forced to construct a new understanding of oneself and continue living within something that is unchosen. Through her work, Birn asks the viewer to enter a space where certainty is difficult to find, and to sit with what cannot be resolved. Julia Birn is an accomplished artist, graphic designer, and entrepreneur, who has participated in multiple large and small group shows in Guam since 2022. She has recently earned her BFA in graphic design from the Savannah College of Art and Design, Summa Cum Laude. Follow her on Instagram @deafeningsilenceco or contact via email at deafeningsilenceco@gmail.com

Chewing on Static

Chewing on Static https://www.guammuseumfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Chewing-on-Static-INSTAGRAM_4K_H265.mov The next exhibit opening October 24, 2026 at the Guam Museum Cafe Gallery. In her first solo show, Julia Birn presents

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