Crossing Oceans & Disciplines: Ocean Fellowship’s Novel Approaches to Ocean-oriented Research

Abstract:

From March to August 2020, TBA21–Academy and the “Territorial Agency: Oceans in Transformation” exhibition supported the Ocean Fellowship, initially conceived as a three-month residential research program in Venice, Italy. The fellowship was translated into a series of online programs and publications due to COVID-19. Nine fellows, from disciplines such as marine geophysics, dance, art, anthropology, and art history, participated in a series of remote investigations into the world’s oceans. Weekly presentations were organized around seven predetermined “trajectories” formulated to link different parts of the globe and inspire multivalent exploration of the oceans.

The “Gulf Stream Trajectory” framed the North Atlantic as a “historical sandbox for western science.” Focusing on the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, participants conducted home experiments to make “sense” of how temperature and salinity drive deep ocean currents. Through a feminist reading we examined the first bathymetric map of the North Atlantic, created by Marie Tharp in 1957, as a physiographic artifact that captures both Tharp’s skilled data analysis and the consequences of Cold War censorship. Finally, we discussed Seabed 2030, considering modern mapping techniques as well as the drivers behind political, economic, and scientific interests in bathymetry. These presentations were woven together with remarks on the visual and cultural techniques of oceanographic representation.

We present this interdisciplinary initiative to examine the challenges of engaging with the sea-of-data surrounding the least understood feature of our planet: the ocean. Ocean Fellowship’s outcomes prompt collaborative traversal of the gulf between scientific and artistic research to address issues of cross-cultural translation, access-limiting barriers between academic research and public knowledge, and widespread political minimization of the impacts of anthropogenic influences on the ocean.