Becoming Ocean:
a social conversation about the Ocean
May 8 –
August 24, 2025
Ingo Niermann: Sea Lovers, 2020, video still. Commissioned by TBA21–Academy. Courtesy of the artist.
External
Exhibitions
From May 8 to August 24, 2025, Villa Arson, TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary and Tara Ocean Foundation present Becoming Ocean: a social conversation about the Ocean, a major exhibition exploring the main challenges facing the Ocean in a choral way. More than 20 international artists are taking part in the exhibition through critical and documentary approaches as well as more sensory, poetic or speculative expressions. The exhibition is part of the program for the Nice Biennial of Arts and the Ocean, organized as part of the United Nations Conference on the Oceans (UNOC3) to be held in Nice from June 9 to 13, 2025.
The exhibition is co-curated by three international institutions to underline the essential role of collaboration and the conviction that art and culture are drivers of social and environmental change.
Becoming Ocean: a social conversation about the Ocean will feature artists from the TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Collection, such as Seba Calfuqueo, Anne Duk Hee Jordan, Simone Fattal, Sonia Levy, Armin Linke, Ingo Nierman, Diana Policarpo, or Allan Sekula, and participants in the Tara Ocean Foundation's artists-in-residence program such as Antoine Bertin, Samuel Bollendorff, Nicolas Floc’h, Christian Sardet, Robertina Sebjanic or Laure Winants. The exhibition is also organized with the collaboration of the Schmidt Ocean Institute, which presents a new work by Max Hooper Schneider.
An extensive public program will accompany the exhibition during the three months, focusing on the experience through art.
The exhibition is co-curated by three international institutions to underline the essential role of collaboration and the conviction that art and culture are drivers of social and environmental change.
Becoming Ocean: a social conversation about the Ocean will feature artists from the TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Collection, such as Seba Calfuqueo, Anne Duk Hee Jordan, Simone Fattal, Sonia Levy, Armin Linke, Ingo Nierman, Diana Policarpo, or Allan Sekula, and participants in the Tara Ocean Foundation's artists-in-residence program such as Antoine Bertin, Samuel Bollendorff, Nicolas Floc’h, Christian Sardet, Robertina Sebjanic or Laure Winants. The exhibition is also organized with the collaboration of the Schmidt Ocean Institute, which presents a new work by Max Hooper Schneider.
An extensive public program will accompany the exhibition during the three months, focusing on the experience through art.
