Chus Martínez, TBA21–Academy’s newly appointed Curator of Ocean Space for 2021-2022, discusses the potentiality of the Ocean as a space for art, while pointing towards new forms of learning in accordance with an oceanic sensitivity.

Backst_age Healing the Ocean
TBA21–Academy 10th Anniversary
In collaboration with TBA21–Academy, st_age presents the Backst_age Healing the Ocean program to mark 10 years of TBA21–Academy’s commitment to addressing the need for care, commonality, and literacy towards the Ocean. Through a selection of excerpts from TBA21–Academy’s streams of enquiry, st_age initiates a growing video syllabus which will address the overarching concepts that define its curatorial program and research interests. 

Is the Ocean an art space? A methodological approach? How do we extend care to the more-than-human? Can the notion of commons help us put a theory of care into practice? Our points of departure will be the inextricable entanglement of social and environmental issues, the importance of listening and responding, the role of art as a vessel of change, and the potent implications of understanding the Ocean as both a living entity and an epistemological substance—especially paramount in the current climate of reckless resource exploitation in the deep sea.

Throughout its programming, the Academy reinforces engaging and fostering a deeper understanding of, and relationship with, the watery worlds. Join us as we begin to explore our Ocean curriculum on st_age with an open-ended exercise in thinking, sensing, and Healing with the Ocean.
Access the audio file HERE.