On the cultural references featured on the meeting poster

The design of the meeting poster is inspired by the importance of star maps in polynesian cultures. Those were used essential for navigators.

 reference: http://archive.hokulea.com/ike/hookele/holding_a_course.html

Each quadran (Hoʻolua, Koʻolau, Malanai and Kona) are divided into 7 ''houses'', each of wich spends 11.25deg of the sky. When a star rises in one house of one quadrant in the Hikina side (East, or ''coming''), it will set in the same house of the opposite quadrant in the Komohana side (West, or ''entering'').

The compass in the poster does not respect exaclty the concept of the houses, as they are not repeating on ech quadrant. But the main science goals for VVV and VVVX are represented in a similar manner. Each quadrant is regrouping topics by theme, and each cardinal point is replaced by some of the many directions working with VVV and VVVX data may go.

One can consider Galactice surveys, such as VVV(X) and others like OGLE, VPHAS, Glimpse, as the star maps that guide modern astronomers.

The boat on the poster is the Hōkūleʻa.

The purple shape represents a Makau, or a fish hook.