Ocean Imagination and Ocean Action: Contemporary Art Institutions as Agents for Ocean Sustainability

TBA21–Academy Artist Film Program

June 13 – June 13, 2025

Fana Fraser: Nesting, 2023. Video, color, sound, 3 min. Commissioned by TBA21–Academy for st_age

TBA21–Academy

Academy Events

Programming

Ocean Imagination and Ocean Action is a program of screenings featuring engaging and inspiring artist films, commissioned by TBA21–Academy, dedicated to exploring the state of the Ocean and advocating for a more-than-human sensitivity to underwater life.

This film program is conceived to instigate ocean imagination and ocean action while the most pressing issues regarding the future of the Ocean are being debated. The films act as a gentle reminder from the arts of the central role the rich underwater life plays in planetary thriving—including the thriving of humans—bringing forth the multiplicity of underwater sensibilities as part of the governance of the seas and its resources.

The selection of recently commissioned films includes creative documentary films on the central topic of deep-sea mining, animations blending the human and animal voices into a unified chorus for cohabitation, and imaginative journeys from Pacific and Caribbean people carrying ancestral knowledge and invoking forms of staying attuned to the water ecosystems. Imagining what we fail to see and proposing actions to restore our ecosystem is a central drive of the art and artists that we honor and support with the inclusion of this film program at the High-Level Event 2025 UN Ocean Conference (UNOC 3).

CURATORS

María Montero Sierra and Markus Reymann

ARTISTS

Will Benedict, Stephanie Comilang, Fana Fraser, Ingo Nierman, Khadija Von Zinnenburg Carroll, Anee Duk Hee Jordan

COORDINATION

Cira Pérez Barés

FILM PROGRAM

Presentation of the Art Film program Ocean Imagination and Ocean Action

Markus Reymann, Co-director of TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary

Will Benedict

All Bleeding Stops Eventually, 2019

Video, color, sound, Ep1, 43 sec

Commissioned by TBA21–Academy and produced by DIS

Stephanie Comilang

Diaspora Ad Astra, 2020

Video, color, sound, 5 min 25 sec

Commissioned by TBA21–Academy with the support of Institut Kunst HGK FHNW in Basel

Will Benedict

All Bleeding Stops Eventually, 2019

Video, color, sound, Ep 2, 40 sec

Commissioned by TBA21–Academy and produced by DIS

Khadija Von Zinnenburg Carroll

Te Moana, 2019

Video, color, sound, 5 min

Commissioned by TBA21–Academy

Will Benedict

All Bleeding Stops Eventually, 2019

Video, color, sound, Ep4, 40 sec

Commissioned by TBA21–Academy and produced by DIS

Anne Duk Hee Jordan

Ziggy and the Starfish, 2016-2018

Video, color, sound, 16 min 28 sec
Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Collection

Will Benedict

All Bleeding Stops Eventually, 2019

Video, color, sound, Ep3, 42 sec

Commissioned by TBA21–Academy and produced by DIS

Fana Fraser

Nesting, 2023

Video, color, sound, 3 min

Commissioned by TBA21–Academy for st_age

Will Benedict

All Bleeding Stops Eventually, 2019

Video, color, sound, Ep 6, 42 sec

Commissioned by TBA21–Academy and produced by DIS

Ingo Niermann

Sea Lovers, 2019

Video, color, sound, 19 min

Commissioned by TBA21–Academy

Will Benedict

All Bleeding Stops Eventually, 2019

Video, color, sound, Ep 5, 43 sec

Commissioned by TBA21–Academy and produced by DIS