Coronavirus has radically changed our lives suspending them in an invisible limbo of anxieties and physically trapping us in our houses. Yet, there is something else that it has done - bringing nature back, even in polluted areas. Due to the general lockdown there are fewer cars in the streets and planes in the skies, which means the air is fresher than usual. In some urban areas people spotted wild animals or rarely seen birds, while in Venice the canals have lost their muddy consistency, revealing fish swimming here and there in the clear waters.
So to ponder a bit about nature reclaiming its spaces while a pandemic is forcing us all to stay inside, let's celebrate today our planet via some of the materials on the digital platform Ocean Archive that features a wide range of photographs, videos and audio, promoting projects and researches to expand ocean literacy. Initiated by TBA21 – Academy and officially launched last year, the platform combines indeed scientific inquiry, creativity and environmental advocacy.
On the platform you will for example find the works of Tuomas A. Laitinen: interested in exploring cognition and consciousness, the artist and musician developed in the last few years glass objects that can be explored by an octopus, plus multiple video and audio works about the sensually fascinating movements of octopuses.
Haemocyanin, 2019, Trailer from Tuomas A. Laitinen on Vimeo.
Among the other films on the platform there is also Albert Serra's "Oceaneering" (2018) documenting Chus Martínez’s second expedition 'Spheric Ocean: To Find the Vegan Lion.'
Via a conceptual framework the film chronicles the daily activities carried out by the expedition participants, providing also an insight into their thoughts and feelings. The adventurous images shot at sea and during an excursion to White Island, New Zealand, will make you dream about the great outdoors and inspire you to make a list of places to visit and enjoy once the lockdown will be over.
Ingo Niermann's "Sea Lovers", is instead an intimate and poetical portrait of the relation between a group of people and the ocean.
The film is currently part of Rem Koolhaas' exhibition "Countryside, The Future" at the Guggenheim in New York (at the moment closed down because of Coronavirus) and will soon be available also on Ocean Archive, but you can already stream it on DIS.ART.
If you want to go for something that can be enjoyed without necessarily having to look at your screen, try the spellbinding reading of energetically experimental rhythmical sound poetry by writer, vocalist and sound artist LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, shot last year at Ocean Space, a venue located in the historic church of San Lorenzo, in Venice.
And for those among us who want to actually see the state of Venice's clean canals in the last few weeks, check out the Ocean Space Instagram page and you will realise that, yes, we may be in a lockdown and quarantine, but we can still use our time to learn, get inspired and dream about a better planet.
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