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The Current II: The Waves of the Oh!s and the Ah!s

Convening #1 led by Chus Martinez

Claudia Comte

Donna Kukama, The Ways We Sing and Move to Become Ocean, the Ways We Remember to Be Ocean, 2018. Performance. TBA21–Academy. The Current II. Photo: Enrico Fiorese

Chus Martínez, The Ohhhs! The Ways to Complain, Part I. A manifesto. Photo: Enrico Fiorese

Marah Hardt, Sex and the Seas or How We Are Not Able to Mate with the Sea, a Pity. Lecture. Photo: Enrico Fiorese

Christina Tony and Reverend Rogers, Everybody Got a Little Voice to Address the Seas. Lecture. Photo: Enrico Fiorese

Diva Amon, Merging With The Depths! Lecture. Photo: Enrico Fiorese

Chus Martínez, Convening #1, The Waves of the Oh!s and the Ah!s. Photo: Enrico Fiorese

Julieta Aranda, Chus Martínez, Ingo Niermann, Three Proposals of Understanding All We Need to Change in Us to Become the Sea. Lecture. Photo: Enrico Fiorese

Claudia Comte, The Day that Wood and Matter Wanted to Become Salt Water, 2018. Performance with music by Egon Elliut and dance by Cecilia Bengolea. Photo: Enrico Fiorese

Mathilde Rosier, Summer School in preparation to the Covening, The Waves of the Oh!s and the Ah!s. Foto: Enrico Fiorese

Summer School in preparation to the Covening, The Waves of the Oh!s and the Ah!s. Foto: Enrico Fiorese

Joan Jonas. Summer School in preparation to the Covening, The Waves of the Oh!s and the Ah!s. Foto: Enrico Fiorese

The Current

TBA21–Academy

Mathilde Rosier

The Waves of the Oh!s and the Ah!s

Think about the Ocean as you think about a relationship. We know that humans are bad at being faithful, infidelity has a tenacity that faithfulness can only envy. If you ask about Nature or the Ocean, everyone would be ready to declare their love, or our dependency, and yet we cheat on the seas, on water, on resources, on the images, on life. Ocean Adultery has many forms, and historically it has been—as Anthony Burgess describes it—“the most creative of sins.” We deplore the many times and many ways we were unfaithful to the Ocean, and yet prohibition only fuels the eagerness with which we consume our forbidden apples—or better said, our forbidden waters, fish, corals, sea beds, and human lives…. We need to face this: If we keep failing to meet our own standards, the solution is simply to try harder. This exercise cannot happen without thinking through a question: Who is the injured party? One would say the Ocean, but would that be to demonize our actions without pausing to explore our motives? Without learning how to weather its occurrence?

Inspired by the history of fear, power abuse and its relation to the elements rather than only to the humans, and drawing on the thinking of many poets, writers, and philosophers about the importance of the complaint to raise awareness, the first day of our convening will be structured as a lament: a collective performance where activists and artists give body, form, and voice to what we lament. Lamenting the Ocean, but also current forms of inequality, considering how gender and racial inequality are in complete entanglement here.

On the second day, the lamenting voice will raise an Awe. Admiration, reverence, a series of acts, performances, and lectures on the issues we admire, on all in life that bring us to this strange space of generosity, since to admire means to go out of oneself.

—Chus Martínez

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LOCATION

Ocean Space
Chiesa di San Lorenzo
Castello 5069
30122 Venezia

PROGRAM

FRIDAY, September 28
Day I. The Night of the Ohs!

7 pm - Welcome
Markus Reymann & Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza

7:20 pm - The Ohhhs! The Ways to Complain, Part I. A manifesto
Chus Martínez

8 pm - Sex and the Seas or How We Are Not Able to Mate with the Sea, a Pity. Lecture
Marah Hardt

8:30 pm - The Creation of the Wave, Part I. Performance (approx. 30 minutes)
Georgia Sagri

SATURDAY, September 29
Day II, The Day of the Ahs!

11 am - The Ways to Awe!, Part II. A manifesto
Chus Martínez

11:30 am - Sensing the Seas. Performance
Mathilde Rosier

12:00 - Merging With The Depths! Lecture
Diva Amon

12:30 pm - Three Proposals of Understanding All We Need to Change in Us to Become the Sea. Lecture
Ingo Niermann, Chus Martínez, Julieta Aranda

1:30 pm - Everybody Got a Little Voice to Address the Seas. Lecture
Christina Tony and Reverend Rogers

2 pm BREAK

3:30 pm - The Day that Wood and Matter Wanted to Become Salt Water.
Performance with music by Egon Elliut and dance by Cecilia Bengolea
Claudia Comte

4:30 pm - The Ways We Sing and Move to Become Ocean, the Ways We Remember to Be Ocean. Performance (approx. 120 minutes)
Donna Kukama

6:30 pm INTERVAL

7 pm - Sex and the Seas or How We Are Able to Mate with the Sea, a Luck!. Lecture
Marah Hardt

8:30 pm - The Creation of the Wave, Part II. Closing performance
Cecilia Bengolea

PARTICIPANTS

Diva Amon, a marine biologist and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow at the Natural History Museum, London, UK, is interested in the weird and wonderful animals living in a range of deep-sea habitats and how our actions are impacting them.

Julieta Aranda is an artist whose work revolves around time, memory and how different media languages recall a more encompassed notion of life.

Cecilia Bengolea is an artists choreographer and dancer that deals with empathy systems, ways of merging through the body and movement experience with nature, with the ocean.

Claudia Comte is an artist dealing with the memory of materials, with the wisdom of the rural, of nature, of the ways technology can serve to preserve the traditional through sculpture.

Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza is the founder and Executive Producer of Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (TBA21) and its sister organization TBA21–Academy. Francesca is of the belief that art has the power to serve as an agent of change. Most recently, Francesca has become increasingly engaged in environmental issues, with a particular emphasis on the oceans.

Markus Reymann is the Director and Co-Founder of TBA21-Academy. As a central programming unit of TBA21, TBA21-Academy’s mission is to foster interdisciplinary dialogue and exchange surrounding the most urgent ecological, social, and economic issues facing our oceans today.

Marah Hardt is a scientist and storyteller, who works at the crossroads of research, creative communication, and strategy to build a sustainable future for people and the sea. Her last book is Sex and the Sea (2017).

Donna Kukama is an artist that both through objects and performance addresses the possibility of introducing a completely new form of sensing that would help us to deal with the past, to renew our imagination, our words, our social behaviour.

Chus Martínez is a writer and curator head of the Institut Kunst in Basel. She is currently also an Expedition Leader of the second cycle of TBA21–Academy fellowship The Current.

Ingo Niermann is a writer and the editor of the speculative book series Solution. He is currently writing a Solution Oceans well as about to release the sequel of Army of Love, a film he did together with Alexa Karolinski, film director.

Mathilde Rosier is an artist whose work deals with how modification in life can be achieved. Working in painting, performance and film, she is interested in ways of trespassing, of life interpenetrating mater and vice-versa.

Georgia Sagri is an artist who has been focusing on performances and installation work dealing with empathy, mimicry, and the potentiality of transformation, both in the social and the biological sense.

Christina Samoka Eu Tony comes from a volcanic island that is currently active. Manam Island is located 13 kilometres off the Northern coast of Madang Province, Papua New Guinea. She works with the community-based Bismarck Ramu Group in the campaign's program with the aim of creating spaces for resistance communities to come together and share their stories.

As part of our commitment to regenerative practices, we have partnered with UreCulture to undertake a series of in-depth case studies examining the ecological and social impact of our collections and the commissioning processes behind them—both regenerative and challenging. These findings are consolidated in the Ecological and Social Impact of the TBA21 Collection reports.
This initiative represents our dedication to transparency and self-reflection, as we seek to honestly evaluate our practices. The results highlight the positive contributions of these artistic endeavors while shedding light on areas for improvement to further reduce our ecological footprint.

The inaugural study focuses on the life cycle of Claudia Comte’s artworks within the TBA21 Collection. Claudia’s collaboration with TBA21 began in 2018 during the TBA21–Academy expedition to New Zealand, The Current II, led by Chus Martínez. This journey culminated in the exhibitions After Nature in Madrid and Underwater Cacti in Jamaica, and included a residency at the Alligator Head Foundation in Jamaica. This ocean conservation hub, a scientific partner of TBA21–Academy, deeply influenced Claudia’s Underwater Cacti project, inspired by the foundation’s coral regeneration program.

Comte’s artistic practice delves into the history and memory of biomorphic forms, blending traditional handcrafting techniques with industrial machine processes. Her installations center around monumental wall paintings and sculptural series that draw inspiration from organic patterns and morphologies such as waves, sonar, rock strata, cacti, and coral reefs.

Case Study: Claudia Comte

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