The Current II: To Find The Vegan Lion

Chus Martinez begins a three-year cycle as Expedition Leader of The Current with an expedition through New Zealand's North Islands

"I decided to name this three-year cycle on artistic intelligence, philosophy, science and nature the Spheric Ocean. The Ocean is spherical because it is not beside the earth nor below it, but all around it. Its form is not what our eyes see, or not only. Its reality cannot be separated nor told apart from anything else on the lived earth, and therefore it poses a demand on us: the need for a philosophy to help us exercise the Ocean. It is difficult to describe what we are aiming for. I would say we are aiming for a philosophy more than anything else. It would be wrong to think that when one says “Ocean,” one is naming a “subject.” One could be as radical as stating that to say “Ocean” is, today, to say “art.” Art without the burden of institutional life, without the ideological twists of cultural politics, art as a practice that belongs and should belong to the artists, art facing the urgency of socializing with all those that care about life. Or, in other words, to say “Ocean” is to replace the historical notion of the avant-garde with a code that is not determined by form and the invention of new gestures, but by an investigation of the substance of life, identifying this as the mission of art. 

At first sight there are “things” that can only be described in positive terms, like the Ocean. It is beautiful how some experiences of nature—of the Ocean—remind us that to live means first and foremost to feel the world around us. But sensibility is not just a faculty, sensibility is much more than that: it is an organ that both senses ourselves and others, and our life is through and through a sensible life. So, being at sea, I cannot but think of the many ways we need to—we must—rehabilitate sensible existence from its marginalization at the hands of modern philosophy, art, and politics and that the only way to do so is to create the conditions for philosophy, art, and politics by defining the ontological status of experience, of organic and inorganic intelligence.

The Ocean is making me aware of its philosophical status. Being at sea is being in an atmosphere, and being in an atmosphere is a very powerful image of thought, one that immediately calls for a challenge of the distribution of disciplines in the human sciences and humanities. I imagine a philosophy of the Ocean, a philosophy of plants, a philosophy of animals, as part of a philosophy of life that will, then, be entangled with all the developments in the philosophy of consciousness. I know that many think action is first, but how can we act differently if we are unable to deeply think/sense differently? Logically speaking, no real difference can emerge from a doing that only perpetuates or corrects and reforms past doing. Also, how can doing be separated from Modernity’s stubborn pretension to see the human spirit as achieved only through the material production of objects and their exchange, that is, material culture? So, doing cannot survive without an Ocean of conditions for biological existence… I see all this water and feel a monstrous urge to reunite all thinkers and artists to meet here and start this new school of sensing intelligence. 

And the next question arises: is the Ocean an art space? Or a future space within the arts? We will be addressing this paradoxical question at The Current Convening and Summer School we are organizing in Venice, in the last week of September." 

—Chus Martínez

With thanks to the Art Institute in Basel, HGK, FHNW.

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