BEYOND THE SEA

marine ecology

white box | black box

INSTALLATION | THEATRE PERFORMANCE

Art installation and performance about our interconnectedness with the sea. An interactive and balancing space filling installation, representing the ecosystem of the sea. Hand made painting, plastic waste objects and cracking sounds bouncing around you.

Listen to talking fish, crackling plankton and singing whales. Surrounded by the orchestra of the sea, you wash ashore on a beach in West Africa. Here, a sea turtle was once born, returning after 30 years to lay her eggs. She crosses the boundery between land and sea, and enters the human world. What does she wnat to tell us about the ocean?

Beyond the Sea is a project developed in collaboration with marine ecologists. Artist Mirthe Dokter conducted research on the coast of Ghana. The accompanying documentary De Geharde Rug (LEATHERBACK) (NPO 2DOC) shows how she became Involved in the issues of climate change and the fate of the sea turtle along the West African coast.

This project grew out of analogue animations and interviews into paintings of fishes, webs of ecosystems and snippets of melodies. While talking with marine ecologists, the 2D images became a space of balancing and connected objects. While singing, we started moving and invited a dancer. We created the sounds of the sea with our own voice. Mirthe became pregnant. The water of the sea became the water of the belly. We were invited at scientific conferences, to make the subject of climate change and oceanic challenges sensible and personal. We made them sing. We all sang.