21 August, 4 – 5:30 pm
“WE ARE OCEAN” Tiefseetauchgang (deep-sea dive) / Online-Workshop
Guests:
Antje Boetius (polar and deep-sea researcher, director of the Alfred Wegener Institute)Â
Martin Visbeck (Head of the Research Unit: Physical Oceanography, GEOMAR)
Torsten Thiele (economist, founder of the Global Ocean Trust, Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies IASS Potsdam)
Michelle-Marie Letelier (filmmaker)
Anne-Marie Melster (Executive Director ARTPORT_making waves)
About “WE ARE OCEAN”
WE ARE OCEAN is an interdisciplinary art project which gathers artists, students, scientists, policymakers, philanthropists, teachers, and curators in order to raise awareness and engage in dialogue about the environmental condition of the ocean and the role humans play in its current and future state. The project events in Berlin and Brandenburg investigated how we interact with the ocean and how interdependent humans and the ocean are. The overall goal was to raise scientific and political awareness through the arts, particularly among young people, to stimulate behavioural change and social action and help them to act responsibly and become conscientious citizens. Ultimately, WE ARE OCEAN seeks to shift the narrative surrounding the ocean – from that of an ocean for human use and exploitation with infinite resources – to an ocean that offers numerous yet precarious benefits to humankind which is its steward and caretaker.
In 2019 we started in Berlin and Brandenburg, in 2020 it is traveling to Kiel (Germany), Marseille (France), Vancouver (Canada), Bremerhaven (Germany), Venice (Italy) with more stops to follow from 2021 to 2030, since we will support the whole UN Ocean Decade.
The different project parts of WE ARE OCEAN and WIR SIND DAS MEER in Brandenburg and Berlin conducted by Lisa Rave and the respective film produced by the artist were funded by Stadt und Land, Stiftung Berliner Sparkasse, Fonds Soziokultur, Deutsche Postcode Lotterie and IASS Potsdam.
The scientific-artistic workshops delivered by the scientist Oscar Schmidt from IASS Potsdam, the artist Lisa Rave and the curators Anne-Marie Melster and Julia Moritz from ARTPORT_making waves were giving an overview on specific topics like fishing, transport and traffic, energy extraction, seabed mining, global climate, interdependence ocean and climate, tourism, garbage). The scientist delivered the scientific knowledge, the curators and the artists created a program of knowledge transfer through interactive and participatory methodologies with the outcome that the participating school students were able to demonstrate what they had learned during the workshops and to express their feelings and solution orientation in the film WE ARE OCEAN created by the artist, but also during the interactive interventions at Marine Regions Forum and in the Futurium Berlin.