Ocean / Uni

The fall semester of OCEAN / UNI 2021 begins by asking not why or what to research, but how. To wade through water, to walk through a fluid substance—the current of a shallow river, the edge of a littoral zone, or the heart of a lagoon—requires slowing down and adapting one’s way of moving to the pressure of a thick and liquid medium. This means we need to think through careful and continuous observation of the world, rather than after it. [1] Wading is an act that brings awareness of tidal or seasonal temporalities, touching and haptic ways of knowing, of feeling through water and the overflow of experience.

An oceanic existence implies a constant state of becoming that thrives on open trails of exploration instead of appropriation or conquest. To conceive, tell, and hear stories is to engage with contexts and lifeways in relation [2] —it is a viscous form of research, a mode of learning by doing and engaging with existing conditions. It entails thinking of a place as an intricate net of the relations and forms of knowledge that populate it, rather than something pristine to conquer and box into fixed categories. [3] It is an approach to exploration that implies crossing the same path over and over again and never exhausting the possibilities that unfold along this itinerary.

By making space for stories that unwind the logics of accumulation and extraction pervading the Ocean, OCEAN / UNI welcomes perspectives that are intertwined with alternative ways of knowing, of organizing communities and modes of living together, attentive to non-binary, feminist, Indigenous, and decolonial approaches in ocean observation and conservation.

Storytelling opens up paths for scientific knowledge and traditional ecological knowledge to intersect and pollinate each other. The series unfolds through six methodologies, offered as live possibilities for storytelling to generate knowledge, put it to use, and pass it along. We ask ourselves which modes of narrating, listening, archiving, playing, translating, and locating can be employed to reimagine and rewrite our histories, to stay present and attentive, and to create possibilities for other worlds to come into being.

In this impulse resonate the words of feminist writer Ursula K. Le Guin in The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, an essay-tale where Le Guin imagines technology and science as a carrier bag, a container to bring food home. In her eyes, a story is a bag, a belly, a box, a house or a medicine, a container for things contained, a tool that serves to sustain life and memory and to resist and replace the “killer story,” a trajectory of human progress centered around the heroic narrative of violence and domination. [4]

Hegemonic systems of knowledge have manifested actions of asymmetry, exploitation, and violence over and through the Ocean. We are seeking mutual methodologies for wading through the littered histories of these murky waters—to train ourselves into the unease of immersion in an unfamiliar medium, to slow down and find other currents.

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[1] Tim Ingold, “Anthropology Between Art and Science: An Essay on the Meaning of Research,” Field issue 11 (fall 2018), http://field-journal.com/issue-11/anthropology-between-art-and-science-an-essay-on-the-meaning-of-research.
[2] Judy Iseke, “Indigenous Storytelling as Research,” International Review of Qualitative Research (November 2013).
[3] Ingold, ibid.
[4] Ursula K. Le Guin, The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction (London: Ignota Books, 2019 [1986]).

In correspondence with the main acts, five workshops are curated by current Fellows of TBA21–Academy’s 2021 Ocean Fellowship. By offering a space to employ the explored methodologies, the activations provoke advancement from theory to practice, and invite participants to engage and respond. Workshops will open for registration in the preceding weeks.

Ocean / Uni’s format of study is centered around biweekly sessions to take place online on Zoom Platform and Ocean-Archive.org between October 6 and December 15, 2021.

The curriculum is open to:

Adults from any background and eager to engage in ecological, political, aesthetic, ethical, and scientific conversations around the futures of the Ocean.

Lectures will be held exclusively in English, so a good listening and speaking level is recommended to ensure a meaningful learning experience.

The curriculum is open to anyone with an interest in deepening their knowledge, understanding, and experience of the research topics unfolded in the exhibitions "The Soul Expanding Ocean #1: Taloi Havini", and "The Soul Expanding Ocean #2 : Isabel Lewis", both on display at Ocean Space until 17 October 2021 and curated by Chus Martínez.

Participants are required to register for their attendance to the program online in a webinar format. Due to limited capacity applicants will be selected on a first-come, first-served basis. You are welcome to register in advance for more than one session. If you attend five sessions or more, you will receive an official certificate of attendance.

ONLINE REGISTRATION

OCEAN / UNI OPEN CALL

Main sessions (“acts”) begin on 6 October and follow a biweekly rhythm. Guests are present live or pre-recorded on Zoom (All time in CET).

Wednesday, 6 October, 6–7.30 pm
PROLOGUE: LISTENING
“Keep awake, keep listening. / The tide comes in fast”

Keynote speaker: Wanda Nanibush, Anishinaabe-kwe curator, artist and educator based in Toronto, Ontario. Curator of Indigenous Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario and Shaul Bassi, Associate Professor of English literature, Ca' Foscari University of Venice; Meredith Root-Bernstein, CNRS research scientist, Natural History Museum in Paris, and teacher of the GEO—DESIGN course, Design Academy Eindhoven, The Netherlands.

Thursday 14 October, 6–7.30 pm
SPECIAL MOMENT: ANTHROPOCENE CAMPUS

In collaboration with Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, hybrid event: online and at Ocean Space, Venice.
With: Cristina Baldacci, Senior Researcher at Ca' Foscari University of Venice; Shaul Bassi, Associate Professor of English literature, Ca' Foscari University of Venice; Giorgio Andreotta Calò, artist; Barbara Casavecchia, curator and writer, leader of The Current III, TBA21–Academy.

Wednesday, 20 October, 6–7.30 pm
FIRST ACT: ARCHIVING
SESSION: “We need to tell and tell until all our stories are standing with us.”

With: Michelle Caswell, Associate Professor of Archival Studies in the Department of Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles; Raphaël Grisey, artist. Session curated by the Ocean Fellows and Mentors 2021.

Wednesday, 27 October, time TBC
ACTIVATION: ON ARCHIVING

Led by: Ohan Breiding, artist and Shoghig Halajian, curator and researcher, Ocean Fellows 2021
With: Michal Kučerák, Digital Content Manager, TBA21–Academy.

Wednesday, 3 November, 6–7.30 pm
SECOND ACT: NARRATING
SESSION: “the story as i remember it”

In collaboration with Ca’ Foscari University of Venice.
With: Valentina Bonifacio, Associate Professor in Applied and Visual Anthropology at Ca' Foscari University of Venice; Macarena Gómez-Barris, Professor and Chairperson of Social Science and Cultural Studies at Pratt Institute, New York; Amanda Choo Quan, writer and poet.

Wednesday, 10 November, time TBC
ACTIVATION: ON NARRATING

Led by: Ella Navot, Ocean Fellow 2021.
With: Pietro Consolandi, researcher and artist, former Ocean Fellow.

Wednesday, 17 November, 6–7.30 pm
THIRD ACT: PLAYING
SESSION: “It matters what knots knot knots”

In collaboration with Institut Kunst, FHNW Academy of Art and Design, Basel, Switzerland.
With: Isabel Lewis, artist; Chus Martínez, Curator of Ocean Space 2021-2022.

Wednesday, 24 November, time TBC
ACTIVATION: ON PLAYING

Led by: Chahinez Bouguerche, postdoctoral researcher in fish parasitology at the Swedish Museum of Natural History, Ocean Fellow 2021. With: Fiona Middleton, marine researcher, Research & Community Assistant, TBA21–Academy, former Ocean Fellow.

Wednesday, 1 December, 6–7.30 pm
FOURTH ACT: LOCATING
SESSION: “The inundated need no instruction in inundation”

In collaboration with GEO—DESIGN, Design Academy Eindhoven, The Netherlands. With: Formafantasma, designers and directors of the GEO— DESIGN course, Design Academy Eindhoven, The Netherlands; Ayla Kekhia, designer, art director, and visual researcher; Francesca Tambussi, designer and art director; Giuditta Vendrame, designer, artist and researcher.

Wednesday, 8 December, time TBC
ACTIVATION: ON LOCATING

Led by: Zoé Le Voyer, Ocean Fellow 2021 and co-founder of collective Calypso36°21. With: Beatrice Forchini, Research and Education Programmer, TBA21–Academy.

Wednesday, 15 December, 6–7.30 pm
FIFTH ACT: TRANSLATING
SESSION: “The prefix trans~ promises movements across”

Guests will be announced shortly.

Wednesday 16 December, time TBC
ACTIVATION: ON TRANSLATING

Led by: Rosalyn D'Mello; author, art critic, columnist, researcher, lecturer and Ocean Fellowship 2021 Mentor
With: Katarina Rakušcek, Content Strategist, TBA21–Academy.

Initiated by TBA21–Academy in the fall 2020 as part of the activations around the exhibition Territorial Agency: Oceans in Transformation curated by Daniela Zyman, OCEAN / UNI is a program for higher education institutions, independent researchers, practitioners, and ocean enthusiasts that encourages building a far-reaching network and developing a transdisciplinary methodology. Conceived as a pedagogic space, OCEAN / UNI invites thinking with the Ocean as a way to move towards more amphibious formulations, beyond land-sea binaries. Framing the Ocean as an animate assemblage that constantly pulse and evolve, as political agents, and as epistemological substance might enable humans to (re)create forms of kinship that have been violated. The curriculum blends grassroots and academic knowledge, artistic positions and scientific case studies, institutional and self-seeded initiatives, to offer multifaceted and accessible explorations of the histories, ideas, and material changes taking place throughout the Ocean. Watch the trailer of OCEAN / UNI Spring Semester 2021, Ocean Commons: Reclaiming the Common Ocean.

OCEAN / UNI 2021/2022 will host further conversations, case studies, and encounters. The program for the Fall semester 2021, "How to wade through water? Storytelling as a Method", draws on the works of artist Taloi Havini, resulting in the The Soul Expanding Ocean #1 exhibition, as well as on Isabel Lewis’ performance exhibition The Soul Expanding Ocean #2, both curated by Chus Martínez as part of the program The Current II.

The proposed format of study revolves around biweekly sessions supported by smaller, more intimate workshops, hosted digitally. The program is open to a group of pre-registered public participants, university groups, guests, and moderators connected via Zoom, the ocean comm/uni/ty, and Ocean-Archive.org.

The OCEAN / UNI curriculum 2021/2022 is curated and developed by Barbara Casavecchia, Leader of The Current III; Beatrice Forchini, Research and Education Programmer: Pietro Consolandi and Fiona Middleton, former Ocean Fellows; alongside Petra Linhartova, Head of Digital & Development, and Markus Reymann, Director of TBA21–Academy; in collaboration with Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, GEO–Design at Design Academy Eindhoven, Institut Kunst HGK FHNW in Basel; and produced with care by the TBA21–Academy team.

Graphic design: Lana Jerichova

• Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Italy
• Columbia University, NY, USA
• GEO—DESIGN, Design Academy Eindhoven, The Netherlands
• Hochschule Mainz: University of Applied Sciences, Germany
• Institut Kunst, FHNW Academy of Art and Design, Basel, Switzerland
• Salon Swiss / Bern University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland