CLEAN OCEAN SAILING PRESENTS A TALK BY ANTHROPOLOGIST ANTJE SCHARENBERG
MARITIME MOVEMENTS: HOW CIVIL SOCIETY TAKES CARE OF THE OCEAN
18.15 Welcome from Clean Ocean Sailing
Anthropologist Antje Scharenberg, says:
“Half of our planet is covered by an area that belongs to all of us: the high seas. Here lies an area outside of national jurisdiction which is defined as the common heritage of humankind by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Yet, paradoxically, in our institutional political system, there are few ways to exercise political agency over decisions concerning the ocean. There is, in Chris Armstrong’s words, an „ocean-shaped hole” in our democracy.
This talk turns to those who set out to change this institutional lack of attention to the ocean, namely maritime movements and civil society actors who act politically at the sea. Based on findings from an ongoing four years long ethnographic research project at the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland) and the University of Southampton (UK), this talk discusses three sites of contemporary ocean activism (the ship, the seagrass meadow and the deep seabed) to illustrate how politics in the ocean concern all of us – and how we may collectively take care of this planetary common space.”
19.15 Q&A
This talk is part of a new series of monthly late openings on the first Friday of each month with art, talks, performance, food and drink.
Image:Whale in the Room is an installation by andre kong studio that serves as a stark reminder of the pressing issue of marine plastic pollution and its devastating impact on sea life and coastal ecosystems. The 350 kgs of plastics, retrieved from the sea by Clean Ocean Sailing, a Cornish organisation dedicated to cleaning expeditions, vividly represents the amount of plastic waste that enters the world’s oceans every single second. Whale in the Room is part of Storm Warning and is exhibited at The Exchange.
