Exhibiting Oceans on a Small Island

A wave of exhibitions and creative projects responding to the social and ecological significance of the oceans has swept the global art world and the UK is no exception. However, since this theme began to gather momentum over a decade ago, the bodies of water surrounding the British Isles have become increasingly politically and ecologically fraught. Curators and artists find themselves working in the wake of long-running ‘hostile environment’ immigration policy, the Windrush scandal, Brexit and closed borders at a time of Pandemic. While thousands of lives continue to be put at risk in small boat crossings each year, anti immigration protests are unfolding around the UK. British heritage institutions are embroiled in ongoing activism and debate over the maritime legacies of colonialism and the Transatlantic slave trade, exemplified by the memorable felling and dumping of Edward Colston’s statue in the Bristol Harbour. At the same time, cultural organisations, museums and other heritage sites necessarily attend to the climate-induced marine crises of rising sea levels, coastal erosion and corresponding widespread environmental activism, as to the drive to decolonise. While the blue humanities and critical ocean studies have emerged as sub-fields of the broader environmental humanities, art and curation present unique modalities for engaging with marine topics thematically and methodologically. This workshop brought together a groupd of curators to discuss these challenges and ways to raise awareness of this work.