Echoes of the Sanctuary
Curated by Louise Carver —
For almost a decade, TBA21–Academy has been working alongside the Jamaican community-based science and conservation organization, the Alligator Head Foundation, which manages the East Portland Fish Sanctuary for coral and habitat restoration, working with fishing and upland farming communities through a ridge-to-reef methodology.
"Echoes of the Sanctuary", the 2025 exhibition in Ocean Space’s Research Room in dialogue with "otras montañas, las que andan sueltas bajo el agua" [other mountains, adrift beneath the waves] presents TBA21–Academy’s long-term work in Jamaica weaving together marine conservation, regenerative development, and artistic production.
In addition to making this program public in Venice for the first time including prior artist residencies, the exhibition presents the eponymous research project (2022–2025) led by critical geographer Louise Carver. "Echoes of the Sanctuary" explores the affirmative possibilities of convivial conservation with TBA21–Academy’s Jamaican partner organization, the Alligator Head Foundation.
Convivial (literally "living with") conservation is an international research and advocacy agenda promoting "coexistence, (bio)diversity, and justice" shifting the norms of mainstream approaches to conservation. The exposition outlines the contours of this work and its possibilities in Jamaica, aligning with the AHF’s vision for transformative, practical experimentation—combining embedded artistic residencies, research, advocacy, and community-based conservation for the decade to come.
Fieldwork, archival research, theoretical perspectives, and proposals for convivial conservation are presented. In addition, interview and ethnographic recordings are reconstructed as a multi-channel audio platform creating a polyphonic atmosphere of rural Jamaican and Kingston environmental activism. Shaped by urgent calls for transformative change in planetary governance, convivial conservation advocates for the reconnection between nature and people, and the economic, epistemic, and emotional healing required for co-existence to become possible.
BIOGRAPHY
Louise Carver, PhD is a human geographer and political ecologist exploring how governance, knowledge, politics and technologies shape the interactions between environment and society. Her transdisciplinary work follows critical questions of value and valuation in the green and blue economy, specifically in relation to biodiversity. She works across research, policy and contemporary arts and culture settings, bringing these together while bridging science and society for real world challenges. Louise is currently leading a transdisciplinary programme on Convivial Marine Conservation with arts and advocacy platform TBA21 Academy with their partners in Jamaica. She is a founding member of the Convivial Conservation Centre, based at Wageningen University, with a global network of partners reimagining conservation science, practice and economy in the 21st Century.
Partners
