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Flickering Shores, Sea Imaginaries, this year’s edition of the Sea Art Festival, is inviting us to rethink our relationship with the sea, referring to the beauty but at the same time, the fragility of our shores, and exploring alternative frameworks and visions for engaging with the ocean and marine environments.
The sea is deeply embedded in our lives and capitalist society, a vital source for our survival, but also a vast industry we exploit for food, medicines, energy, minerals, trading, travel and so on. But increased human activity, from extensive cruise tourism, shipping and overfishing to nuclear testing, pollution and deep-sea mining have been plaguing the sea, having a huge impact on marine ecosystems and habitats.
Instead of viewing the sea from the coast as a divided and abstract surface for moving around commodities, Flickering Shores, Sea Imaginaries reminds us that we are part of this body of water. This year's Sea Art Festival aims to explore new relationships with the sea and its ecologies, enabling spaces for cooperation, collective visions and synergies as a call to resistance and restoration.
Robertina Šebjanič is an internationally exhibited artist/researcher whose work explores the bio-chemical, (geo)political, and cultural realities of aquatic environments and the impact of humanity on other organisms. Her projects call for developing empathetic strategies aimed at recognizing the Other. In her analysis of the Anthropocene and its theoretical framework, the artist uses the terms “aquatocene” and “aquaforming” to refer to the human impact on aquatic environments. Her works have received awards and nominations at the Prix Ars Electronica, Starts Prize, Falling Walls, and RE:Humanism.
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With philosophy at its core, Shailesh BR’s work contemplates the world by examining existing knowledge, systems, traditions, rituals, metaphysics, and philosophy itself through methods of science, technology, and artistic intervention. The artist was recognized in 2015 with the Emerging Artist Award from the Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art, followed by a residency in 2016 at Atelier Mondial, Basel. He had a solo exhibition, Tarka at Vadehra Art Gallery, and The Last Brahmin at Villa Arson Nice, France. Shailesh has also exhibited at SAVVY Contemporary and the Armory Show, as well as numerous other galleries and museums.
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Muhannad Shono is not limited to any one particular medium or scale. His multidisciplinary practice is catalyzed and structured by the story. Shono’s work harnesses the power of narrative by creating and contesting personal, collective, and historical truths. Impacted by childhood memories, throughout his early career—and right up until today—the aim and expression of his work are rooted in exploring both the existent and non-existent boundaries which have characterized his life. His works have been presented across the world, from intimate drawings and large-scale sculptural works to robotic and technological pieces, all of which illuminate a journey he would like to take us on.
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Gary Zhexi Zhang explores connections between cosmology, technology, and the economy. He is the editor of Catastrophe Time!, a book of financial fiction. Dead Cat Bounce, an oratorio he made with Waste Paper Opera, premiered in 2022. His last solo show, Cycle 25, documented events at the boundaries between speculative belief and the material world, like natural disasters, scam nations, and cosmic economies. His work has been shown at the Venice Architecture Biennial, the Power Station of Art, Shanghai, and Para Site, Hong Kong. Upcoming commissions will be presented at the Art Gallery of York University, EPFL, Lausanne, and Eastside Projects, Birmingham.
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With philosophy at its core, Shailesh’s work contemplates the world at large by examining existing knowledge, systems, traditions, rituals, metaphysics, and philosophy itself through methods of science, technology, and artistic intervention. With a diverse visual vocabulary, he attempts to interweave philosophical connections between disparate observations, thoughts, moods, feelings – the internal world – and objects, machines, landscapes, phenomenons – the outer world.
As part of his learning in a Gurukul (Traditional Indian knowledge system or school), he was exposed to mythological scriptures and Tarka Shastra - a process to analyze the source of knowledge and its verification through the art of debate. The play between the external beauty or functionality of a form/object, its inner meaning, extended connotations, and the consequential critical analysis of the object is what is embodied in the Tarka Shastra which also informs his artistic practice. He thereby combines this knowledge with scientific methods and machinery of the modern world that concerns contemporary human needs, roles, and responsibilities.
Samudra Manthan addresses the same by navigating, visualizing, and creating a kinetic sculpture of a rotating mountain that constantly churns the seawater contained in a tank. By taking reference from an Indian mythological story of the same name, the work mentions a churning process through which the world and all the living beings emerged, but also emerged nectar and poison. The story begins with the Devas (deities) forming an alliance with the Asuras (demons) to jointly churn the ocean for the nectar of immortality to be shared, assuring diplomacy and equality. The churning of the ocean was an elaborate process for which Mount Mandara (Name of a mountain) was used as a churning rod, and Vasuki the King of Serpents became the churning rope. As the process is gone through and the nectar is successfully obtained, it is deceptively consumed by the devas / deities whereas the poison is left for the demons.
This mythological tale of aspirations is visualized in the context of today’s world in the kinetic project, Samudra Manthan: Churning of the Ocean. Although the nectar is desired by all, the poison shall inevitably be consumed too. The yearning to achieve immortality in the story is also symbolic and metaphorically profound in relation to contemporary issues.
The vastness of the ocean and its unlimited potential has been a reservoir of resources for humankind since ages. In current times, it is considered one of the most valuable natural resources that provide us with; food, fuel, energy, medicine, minerals, gems, and other materials. This extraction process often includes drilling the seabed in order to extract the crude oil, reverberating the core of the mythological story. Here in the project, the nectar and poison are metaphorically perceived as consequences of our constant efforts in the consumption industry. Samudra Manthan: Churning of the Ocean is an attempt to examine the polarizing impacts of extraction of resources by contemplating the construction, deconstruction, and consumption of resources and thoughts in current times. In this process, Shailesh uses technology to reflect upon his thoughts and give them a new meaning that eventually unfolds the socio-political hierarchy.
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Mangroves forests form a vital ecosystem, connecting land and sea. Found in tropical and sub-tropical areas all over the world, mangroves provide shelter and food for young marine life, works as a barrier against floodings, and it is an important tool to help us mitigate climate change.
Renata Padovan’s interest in mangroves originates from her research concerning ecological and socio-cultural issues deriving from the neglectful exploitation of ecosystems. As a biome, mangroves are extremely important. They occupy coastal zones acting as an interface between marine and terrestrial environments. They constitute the breeding grounds for a diversity of fish, shrimp, crabs, shellfish, the nesting sites for many birds, and the feeding grounds for a myriad of terrestrial and aquatic species.
Furthermore, the forests and the muddy soil constitute an extremely effective carbon sink. Mangroves protect coastal areas from erosion and tsunamis. The muddy soil absorbs polluting
substances that are discharged in watercourses, ending up in the estuaries, such as pesticides and heavy metals from mining activities. Today, mangroves are among the most endangered habitats in the world, due mainly to coastal developments, logging and shrimp aquaculture.
To be inside of a mangrove forest is an overwhelming experience. The sounds, the incredible design of the tangled roots and embracing patterns of the tree trunks, the filtered light that comes from the canopies, it is magical.
During an immersion in a still pristine mangrove forest in northern Brazil, conscious of the devastation of the biome in many other areas in the artist’s country and around the world, Renata Padovan conceived this artwork that would call the public’s attention to this disregarded ecosystem, generating awareness about its importance and the urgent need for its preservation.
Explore more about mangroves in Renata Padovan’s short film, Transition Zone:
https://vimeo.com/843273956
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What would the sea tell us if we could listen to her?
Rumors from the sea(originally produced in Thailand in 2018) is a sound installation in the middle of the bay of Ilgwang Beach. A bamboo-flutes orchestra played by the water is performing unique concerts 24 hours a day, depending on the tide, the direction, tempo and force of the waves. As a potential listener, you are invited to define the beginning and the end of the music piece played for you, to encourage a unique listening experience.
In every coastal zone and culture of the globe the sea has been a means of livelihood, from fishing weirs to contemporary fishing industry, maritime transport or tourism. The ocean is associated both to resource exploitation and a place to find comfort and relief. Within ever changing times, the human relationship to the sea is becoming a challenge in order to preserve our ways of living. In some places, an adaptation strategy for sea-level rise is the construction of flood-barriers as levees, dikes and seawalls.
Rumors from the sea transforms bamboo seawalls from being barriers into a threshold for listening. This temporary sound installation offers a very special place to gather in public open space for contemplating while listening to the sea and to the environment. It creates a space for human dialogue with nature. The extended sounds of the sea invite us to understand listening beyond the sonorous realm, as a practice of taking care, looking after and paying attention to ourselves, our natural surroundings and others.
The sound installation consists of hundreds of bamboo poles with a bamboo flute at their top. At the bottom of the bamboo, a hole lets the water come in and out. Each wave comes inside the tube, pushing the column of air until the flute is played by the sea.
https://felixblume.com/rumorsfromthesea
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Famously, there are no scientific parameters to explain what consciousness is, or how it emerged: this is known as “the hard problem of consciousness.” But maybe this problem is only hard from humans’ point of view. All Is Water turns the tables and reflects on this problem from the perspective of non-human consciousness. Featuring a speculative text spoken and written by a computer, the film moves from meditations on the history and limits of science to an almost mystical exploration of fish consciousness.
All Is Water filmed in Corsica during the spawning period of the Chromis Chromis - a small species of ray-finned fish from the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean - when the scientists Anja Wegner and Alex Jordan set up an experiment to determine how architecture affects the social behavior of the fish. SUPERFLEX supplied three buoyant structures designed to appeal to underwater life. The local Chromis Chromis population congregated around these structures in great numbers in order to spawn.
As the film goes on, the narration expands its scope from this specific experiment to ask which methods—beyond the materialism of Western science—might be useful for reimagining the hard problem of consciousness. Combining scientific speculation, architectural futurism, and AI-generated philosophy, All Is Water suggests that consciousness is not a stable category, and that humans can potentially shift their perspective in order to tune in to the needs, preferences, and spiritual life of other species.
All is Water is supported by the Danish Arts Foundation.
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Can art help us extend our empathy beyond what we know and see in our immediate surroundings?
Stars On the Sea is a story about the environment that surrounds us. A mother and her young children are seen in a domestic space, while the building is filling up with water. They are moving higher up in the building to escape the already flooded floors, only for more water to reach them. As time passes by, and they have now reached the top, they are trapped in what looks like a vast flooded landscape with floating dwellings.
Jang Seungwook is using human characters in his animation, but in fact they could represent any other living creature. This becomes more evident as the work progresses. For the artist, the situation the creatures face here is not much different from what any other living being would face, but what the main characters in the work symbolize is ultimately who we are.
It symbolizes us (human and non-human) who have no choice but to live on this earth. The environment, our planet is one of the important things we must pass on to the next generation. So, if we were in the place of the mother in this work, what would we do?
‘Noah’s Ark’ appears in the animation in one of the children’s story books. Rather than foreshadowing their salvation, it talks about the coming 'water crisis'. The ark symbolizes salvation in the book, but in reality, the characters fight through harsh conditions in order to survive. In one scene, the family watches TV at home, which presents part of a previous work of the artist. By including these scenes acted out by one character focused on himself and looking only at himself, it alludes to human selfishness.
Jang Seungwook created this work with sorrow and heartbreak, watching countless lives silently enduring the consequences of events for which they bear no direct responsibility. Through the images of those who appear like shining stars in the sky in the last scene, he wants to convey the responsibility we have as people living in this era, the affection, respect, and concern for disappearing creatures, and the hope that their images will not become ours.
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