
Women’s View of the Sea, this art and research project culminated in an art exhibition which served as a platform to elevate the voices and achievements of female artists and researchers, shedding light on their invaluable work. The art exhibition provided a powerful visual representation of the intersection between art, science, and gender equality.
Exhibition opening
The art exhibition has been opened to an enthusiastic audience of over 70 visitors on 18th of September 2024, by Ketil Eiane, Prorector for Research at Nord University, followed by inspiring keynotes from Marit Helene Thoresen (Bodø2024), Ingrid Larssen (artist) and Nadezda Nazarova (researcher).
The visitors had the unique opportunity to explore oceanic themes through the lens of contemporary visual art. The exhibition's installations invited viewers to engage with scientific insights into marine ecosystems, climate change, and biodiversity.
The exhibition has been held in Noatun, a brand-new building of the Faculty of Biosciences and Aquaculture at Nord University. This state-of-the-art science venue allowed a modern and dynamic setting to showcase artworks.
Highlights from the Exhibition
Ten artworks were showcased, each reflecting diverse artistic interpretations of topics in marine science. These pieces created through various media such as photographs, sculptures, textiles, videos, VR experience, highlighted the relationship between the ocean and humankind. The artworks were created by the following artists:
- Marte Aas
- Hilde Frantzen
- Cecilie Haaland
- Julie Hrncirova
- Ingrid Larssen
- Christin Løkke
- Lill-Anita Olsen
- Solveig Elisabeth Ovanger
- Gina Thorstensen
- Linn Rebekka Åmo
The project and exhibition have left a lasting impact, sparking discussions on the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration and inspiring ongoing initiatives aimed at elevating the voices and achievements of womaen and bridging the gap between science and art we hope will continue to influence and inspire.
Woman’s view of the sea has been initiated by Institute of Oceanology Polish Academy of Sciences (IO PAN) in 2022 to address historical underrepresentation of women in a marine context.
Director of Institute of IO PAN, Jan Marcin Weslawski says:
We focus on the marine realm, all fields of science. We want to show how woman are explaining „The Sea”. For centuries, the sea was explored, studied and shown to the public by man. Still in 1970-ties in many countries women were not allowed to take part in research cruises (too long, to physically demanding, too masculine etc.) and now more than half of large marine projects are run end executed by women scientists. Still the narrative about the Sea is a traditional men’s domain – marine painters of the past were men, and most marine books, stories are by men.
As we are concerned with building ocean literacy, the women are needed to complete this task. We want to show to the broad public that the Sea is not only the area of fight and ultimate physical challenge, but it is extremely interesting, important, and also beautiful source of spiritual and esthetical values.
We want to show the broad public that the Sea is not only the area of fight and ultimate physical challenges
Jan Marcin Weslawski, director of Institute of IO PAN
Artist contribution
Research theme: Paving the way towards interspecies economy
Title of the artwork: Francine was a Machine
From the artist: Francine Was a Machine tells the story of René Descartes’ mechanical daughter, a fable about a man of rationality and science creating a human-like machine to replace his deceased daughter, Francine. During a travel through a storm at sea, the crew on the ship discovers the doll in Descartes’ cabin and throw it into the ocean with great awe and horror.
What became of Descartes doll when she was thrown overboard and escaped the rational dualist worldview of her creator? Did she encounter other species; from the marine fauna, who accepted her more readily than her human violators? Is our hostility or estrangement towards the not-quite human, weather a mechanical doll or a cephalopod, also a missed opportunity?
The film draws upon concepts from post-humanist discourse on human-non-human-animal relationships, suggesting that it may be necessary to rethink our approach to fellow creatures. In this way, it aligns with Nadezda Nazarova's research project, Paving the Way Towards Interspecies Economy.
Research theme: Monitoring the Depths
Title of the artwork: Termisk måling
From the artist: I follow a recipe in the process leading up to new works. The process begins with painting patterns on textiles, in this case, stripes. I then take these textiles and place them in various natural environments. I allow the fabric to drape over different terrains, such as rock crevices, stones, or sand dunes. I let the textile sink into the sea, document as it disappears into the darkness and finally comes to rest on the seabed. As the textile conforms to the topography and nature, the painted stripes adapt accordingly. This method enables me to capture the physical contours of the landscape through the textile. I meticulously document and record these interactions, and translating the data into two-dimensional works. The measurements are physical, direct, and at a 1:1 scale. Unlike modern methods of geospatial measurement, my approach operates on a more human scale, emphasizing tactile interaction and the relationship between the hand, body, and terrain.
Research theme: Chemical food
Title of the artwork: Winter Beach/Rebus
From the artist:
Rebus/Winter Beach intertwines Cecilie Haaland’s practices as a ceramicist and photographer. Haaland draws inspiration from the colours and shapes of nature during her breaks from the pottery wheel and workshop. The discoveries she makes both on land and at sea are collected into an unorganized archive for later use.
From the samples gathered during her winter trips, a kind of herbarium emerged. Instead of photographing the findings, which would have been the most natural approach for Haaland, she chose to make direct positive impressions of them in bone china.
When illuminated, either artificially or naturally, bone china is characterized by high translucency, somewhat similar to thin alabaster. The effect produced by the impressions in bone china resembles early photographic processes or X-rays. For Haaland, it was important to create something reminiscent of the physical act of walking along the beach and searching for interesting forms. She aimed to approach the three-dimensional, sculptural aspect rather than the two-dimensional, which is often associated with photography. For her castings, Haaland chose to work with the recognizable Polaroid format. The Latin term “rebus” translates to “things.” Rebus/Winter Beach is a blueprint of the state of things, a cabinet of curiosities that collectively presents a rebus akin to ancient pictograms that we cannot fully decipher.
Research theme: How do snails adapt to different temperatures?
Title of the artwork: Jewels from the sea
From the artist: In the photographic project ‘Jewels from the Sea,’ Julie Hrnčířová builds on her previous work, mainly on the projects “Everyday Sculptures” and “Urban Poetism”, where she focuses on photographing various found objects and thrown-out elements in the city and urban spaces left by people. What interests her is what people leave behind them as traces and all kinds of banal seemingly invisible things that surround us.
In this series, the artist collects small pieces of glass, shards, and plastics found in the sea and smoothed by seawater. With these elements, she created assemblages combined with seaweed, shells, and stones, creating compositions which she then photographed from an unexpected closeness that transformed the given elements to show them in a new perspective.
The final photographs should evoke unsettling but at the same time calming and reconciling feelings and emotions about how we treat our environment, but it is also a reflection of our society of consumption, and how we treat nature and the ocean. Natural and man-made objects are mixed in the compositions and they camouflage each other. The boundary between what is natural and artificially created is lost. In this project, I am questioning how humans influence the ocean and how the objects left by people in the sea communicate with the natural flora and fauna.
The results evoke abstract paintings and surrealistic sculptures, in which the viewer gets pleasantly lost and provides space for thinking and dreaming.
Like the art project, the scientific project „The genomic basis of temperature adaptation across space“ explores the interactions between sea creatures, the forces of the natural environment, and human influence. The project asks how sea snails of the genus Littorina – visible in some of the art pieces – are shaped by their environment, both at the level of shell characteristics (such as shape and size) and at the genetic level.
The human-made pieces of glass and plastic are modified by the forces of the sea over their lifetime. The same forces modify the appearance, physiology and genetic characteristics of the snails over evolutionary time. For example, snails exposed to more wave forces have evolved to be smaller, allowing them to hide in crevices. They have also evolved large genomic mutations that distinguish them from snails living in calmer environments.
Both the scientific project and the photography project zoom into details that are often missed in everyday experience. The scientific work uses DNA sequencing to find genes that help snails adapt to different temperatures – for example, to understand how they can withstand extreme heat or cold, such as being frozen in the ice (as shown in the photo). This will help understanding how sea creatures will respond to human-caused climate extremes. Thus, both the artwork and the scientific project allow a glimpse into how our seas are changing under human influence.
Research theme: Deep-water corals
Title of the artwork: Objekt XXV, Objekt XXIV, Objekt XXII
From the artist: The free water surface, what I see and what I think I see; down there in the depths. The sea carries a magic that attracts me, a seductive force. The attraction to the sea is filled with contradictions, which constantly fill me with wonder, curiosity, and respect.
Life in the sea has always inspired me. From watching it from the shore or by leaning over the side in a small boat, or nature series on television that show life in the depths. Amazing shapes and colours. Today, I feel a deep concern for the sea. The temperature is rising, the fear that ocean currents take new paths, mining on the seabed, etc..
My sea objects have taken a long time to produce. Each piece is unique. I use silk organza that I dye with various plants, seaweed, sea urchins, and lichen. The dyed silk is then hand-sewn in the technique called waffle stitch (an over 800-year-old technique) where I twist and turn the fabric to achieve the desired sculptural expression. The object is integrated into dried kelp.
Reserch theme: Spatial mechanism for ocean protection
Title of the artwork: U(be)rørt I, VII, VIII
From the artist: The series "U(be)rørt" is an interpretation of sea corals and life on the ocean floor. It emphasizes how marine ecosystems are vulnerable and underscores our responsibility to thoroughly investigate the consequences of exploiting marine resources. It advocates for the protection of marine species and habitats to ensure the sustainable development of the blue economy.
The artwork "U(be)rørt" serves as a commentary on these issues, specifically highlighting Norway's pioneering but controversial move to start seabed mining before fully assessing the potential consequences.
Research theme: Monitoring the Depths
Title of the artwork: Yesterday is to day.
From the artist: My work, "Yesterday is today" is based on the idea that the trash we released yesterday will affect the ocean for days, weeks, months and years to come. I choose to put the spotlight on the beauty of the maritime universe, that which is, after all, alive and which still inspires hope and faith that we are on the right path.
"Yesterday is today" has the same theme as Monitoring the Depths, which is also concerned with the problem of littering and how it can affect marine life, in this case the cleaning amphipods.
Research theme: Aquaculture in a Changing Climate
Title of the artwork: Red Tide
From the artist: The work is made from approximately 200 skins from saithe fished near Tromsø. The skins are a waste product from local seafood production, and I have tanned them using the bark of birch and willow trees. All the raw materials come from my local area, apart from plant-based dye that give the red colour.
Our experience is that fishing for saithe depends on the state of the tide with the fish biting more readily when it is flooding. The colour Red is associated with strong feelings of good and evil, with love and war and with life and death.
The title "Red Tide" is taken from the phenomenon that can occur when the sea temperature rises causing a bloom of sometimes toxic algae that, in the worst case, kills other marine life.
Climate change is, in many ways, regarded as positive for us in the north, but could the population of saithe and other local fish species be threatened?
“Red Tide” can be interpreted either directly or symbolically in a wider sense.
Research theme: Deep-water corals
Title of the artwork: "Kabaret" VR-experience
From the artist: "Kabaret" is an interactive Virtual Reality journey about corals, plankton and a lonely shrimp’s worries about the future. It is equally inspired by what science has taught us about the ocean so far, and the mysteries that remain. Motivated by the desire to protect deep-water corals in Røst and inspired by the synchronized mass spawning of southern corals, the experience blends conservation, creative exploration and science into an immersive, imaginative ecosystem.
Research theme: Deep-water corals
Title of the artwork: Revet, The reef
From the artist: Since I was a child I have been picking up litter on the shore, this was something my parents took me to. We took away these foreign elements and colors that had ended up in the wrong place that the sea had brought with it from far and wide. For a while, people said that there was no point in it, there would always be new rubbish, but I think we can see a difference, at least around here on the beaches.
This is something I will continue with.
I really like watching documentaries about the sea, this was one of the things I had in mind when I was working on the series "the reef". The textiles that I used in the project are all used and used in other contexts in the past. Some are taken from sets and costumes for ballet performances, others backdrops from photographers. In the series "the reef", I have created a series of works from the bottom of the sea where reefs, corals and rubbish become a whole.