Associate Professor of Anthropology at Aarhus University and Director of the Aarhus University Centre for Environmental Humanities, Heather Anne Swanson describes the tightened relationships between the oceans and the British canals. These infrastructures were introduced as part of the British empire and global shipping commerce in the 17th century. Since then, the canals have not merely transformed England’s landscapes and fresh waters as they were fashioned into an effective means to transport goods; they have also become an ecological space where ocean materialities and freshwater lifeworlds merge. Swanson invites us to question "What may be noticed if we study oceans from inland areas?" – a line of research that has grounded her collaboration in Sonia Levy's film, Creatures of the Lines, presented on st_age.

By Heather Anne Swanson with Sonia Levy

Waters of Connection: Marine Transport, Introduced Organisms, and Inland Ecologies

Artist Bo Choy speaks with Sayana Namsaraeva, an anthropologist from Buryatia, a republic in Eastern Siberia bordering Mongolia, whose work focuses on the Indigenous cosmologies of the people from her region. Together they delve into animated landscapes that surround Lake Baikal, the deepest and oldest freshwater lake on the planet.

Their conversation considers the intimate connection between these largely untouched landscapes and the rich fabric of belief systems, Indigenous cosmologies, oral traditions, and mythologies that emerge from them. Moving through their shared and diverging influences spanning pre-Buddhism shamanisms, Chinese and Mongolian Buddhisms, Feng Shui, and ancient eastern philosophies, Bo Choy and Sayana Namsaraeva discuss the spirit-life of these lands as they rub up against planetary climate urgencies, and contemplate how ancient wisdoms can have a vital role in the local and global relational ecologies we must form for the future.


If you want to delve deeper into the permafrost, visit the full online programme Dissolving Earths https://dissolving.earth/

Credits:
Soundscape and sound-editing by Either/Or Productions.
Cover image: Bo Choy, ‘These Yearnings Of The Exiled Souls, To Which Time Shall We Send Them?,’ 2022, video still

Umbilical Lands And The Shape-Shifting Lives Of Rivers | Bo Choy and Sayana Namsaraeva

Focusing on the fascinating species of the sperm whale, this conversation brings together José Luis Espejo, researcher and curator, and Txema Brotons, biologist specialized in whales and acoustics, and Tursiops' Association scientific director. The podcast proposes an archaeology of the means by which science and other branches of knowledge first began to listen to and classify cetacean sounds. The scientific research carried out can help us understand the impact of anthropogenic sound on the communication systems of whales, with a focus on the cachalots. 


The podcast departs from talk took place at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, on May 25, 2023, as a part of the public program of the exhibition “Wu Tsang: Of Whales.”


Are you eager to dive deeper into the Ocean? Explore the vast depths of knowledge and immerse yourself in https://ocean-archive.org/, TBA21–Academy’ digital platform.

Credits:
Txema Brotons in conversation with José Luis Espejo
Cover image: Cocos Research Expedition, 2014.  Photo: Jose Alejandro Alvarez.

Cachalotes: Escuchando al Oceáno (Sperm Whales: Listening to the Ocean)

In this podcast Carlos Duarte, scientist and oceanographer, discusses how anthropogenic noise—meaning noise produced by human beings and the machines they make and use—produces an impact on marine fauna, and asks how it is possible to reverse this impact of human pollution. Duarte tells us about the efforts to understand how sound communication functions in the Ocean among the different species, and the importance of art in conveying this to the general public in order to put policies into action.


The podcasts consists of interventions by Carlos Duarte, extracted from the conversation with sound artist Jana Winderen, in a talk moderated by curator and researcher José Luis Espejo that took place at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid on April 18, 2023, which was part of the public program of the exhibition “Wu Tsang: Of Whales.”


Are you eager to dive deeper into the Ocean? Explore the vast depths of knowledge and immerse yourself in https://ocean-archive.org/, TBA21–Academy’ digital platform.

Credits:
Speaker: Carlos Duarte
Cover image: Whales, Silverbanks Research Expedition, 2013. Photo: Jose Alejandro Alvarez.

Marine Anthropogenic Noise: Listening to the Ocean

A piece of architecture is a fraction of a more extensive infrastructure. An experience of a building lingers, capturing the essence of a particular time and place. Modern architecture created motifs that traveled to other cities. Versions of these motifs often evoke a sense of familiarity when their variations are encountered. Some modern monuments' direct relationship to past regimes puts them at risk of being neglected, destructed, repurposed, or even preserved for myriad reasons. Often, there is no comprehensive framework in place to address their significance or ensure their preservation. This podcast delves into the interpretation of monumental projects as evidence of intricate relationships between regimes. It also reflects on the intangible yet profound impact of stories and their transformative impact on architecture, revealing the complex interplay between politics, imagination, and the ever-changing nature of constructed environments. 

Ala Younis 

Credits:
Contributors: Dina Taha and Ali Yass
Conducted by Ala Younis
https://www.stage.tba21.org/episode/sahil-naik

Creating one's own––The lingering presence of stories and their impact on architecture

This podcast is based on the work of the artist Irene de Andrés, A orillas del Manzanares (On the Banks of the Manzanares River, 2022), whose research originates in a pool shaped like an ocean liner, known as La Isla (the island), which was built in the Madrilenian Manzanares river in the 1930s. 

With the help of two experts—Malú Cayetano, landscape designer and forestry engineer, and David Uribelarrea del Val, professor of geomorphology at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid—we open a conversation about the Manzanares river, understood as a theater of memory, that puts into circulation the layers and flows of a city in relation to the forms of life that its river has made and will continue to make possible.

Violeta Janeiro Alfageme

Credits:
Contributors: Malú Cayetano and David Uribelarrea del Val
Conducted by Violeta Janeiro Alfageme

Río Manzanares: un teatro para la memoria (The Manzanares River: A Theatre for Memory)

The Climate Matters podcast will delve into the socio-political and economic contexts surrounding the climate change conversation in India. Through engaging discussions and expert insights, our guests will shed light on the frameworks and challenges related to climate policy and environmental law with a special focus on the communities most affected by climate change. The podcast will take a comprehensive approach to unpacking the complexities of climate action in India.

This podcast was produced and hosted by Khoj team members Alina Tiphagne, Head of Media and Communications, and Isha Bhattacharya, Junior Curator and Program Manager, who are accompanied by award-winning independent science journalist Disha Shetty, who writes mainly on public health, climate change, and women; Shibani Ghosh, environmental lawyer and fellow at the Centre of Policy Research (CPR), who specializes in environmental and access to information laws; and Awadhendra Sharan, Director of the Centre for study of developing societies (CSDS), whose research interests are in the fields of urban and environmental studies, present in his most recent publication Dust and Smoke: Air Pollution and Colonial Urbanism, India (2020). 

Credit:
Contributors Disha Shetty, Shibani Ghosh, and Awadhendra Sharan
Conducted by Alina Tiphagne and Isha Bhattacharya

Link to full st_age episode: https://www.stage.tba21.org/episode/khoj-and-zuleikha-chudari

Climate Matters

In this podcast, artist and researcher Susana Jiménez Carmona talks with scientists Claudio Barría, a marine biologist, and Michel André, a bioacoustician. Both are involved to different degrees in the artistic production and research project ruido ê by Silvia Zayas, an audiovisual and performing artist—a fragment of the film ruido ê can be seen on this same platform. Some issues raised by or arising during the development of this project are addressed here by Barría and André, including interspecific coexistence in coastal cities, encounters with elusive electric rays, the effects of anthropogenic noise on living creatures and marine ecosystems, and collaborations between disparate humans.

Text by Susana Jimenéz Carmona

Credits:
Conducted by Susana Jimenez Carmona
Contributors: Michel André and Claudio Barria

Tan lejos tan cerca, ruido (So far so close, noise)

Born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago, Fana Fraser is currently a U.S. based contemporary dance artist who explores the nature and essence of things within a framework of exploratory embodiment. Her short film, nesting (2023), was filmed both in and near water, at the intersection of physical and philosophical constructs of borders, urgency, and care. It enjoins us to consider the environment, our responsibilities, and our humanity, and, although the film was shot on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, it evokes a feeling of Caribbean consciousness and reality. 
 
Three artists who live and work in the Caribbean region—dance practitioners Sonja Dumas (host) and neila ebankhs, from Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica respectively, as well as Trinidad and Tobago poet Shivanee Ramlochan—examine the work in the context of the Caribbean’s relationship to its environment, the ache of its past, and musings on its future.

Sonja Dumas

Credits:
Contributors: Shivanee Ramlochan and neila ebankhs
Conducted by Sonja Dumas

Of History, Habitat, and The Shore: Framing a Caribbean Discourse around Fana Fraser’s “nesting”

For video podcast in sign language please visit st_age website on the following link: https://www.stage.tba21.org/detail/ocean-for-all

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Abecedarium. The Ocean in Sign Language is the name of a multi-year educational and participatory project in collaboration with ENS, Ente Nazionale Sordi (Italian Deaf Agency), and CNR ISMAR, Institute of Marine Sciences.

The main idea of the project is to create an eco-glossary in sign language, beginning with Italian sign language, before moving to other countries and international signs related to the marine world and the climate emergency. The ocean covers almost the entire Earth, and all human lives depend on the ocean—from the air we breathe to the food we eat to what we wear. Yet the ocean is also endangered because of the great impact of human activities. 

To be able to care for the Ocean it is absolutely fundamental that everybody has access to artistic content and scientific knowledge without exclusion. We all need to be involved in safeguarding the planet, and everyone must have the information and tools required to access it. 

‘Abecedarium, The Ocean in Sign Language’ proposes a vision of an ocean sea as an open access for all to information. This is an engaging and inspirational ocean, where different expressions and experiences converge, and are also translated into tangible manifestations related to contemporary culture.  

Art, in the values it expresses, can be an effective means of social development to achieve this change. Building the possibility of interpreting our history together through training activities, and creating new forms of expression for new situations, for new worlds, means opening up to new areas of cultural growth, thereby guaranteeing processes of democracy, equity, exchange, and cultural interaction between the various components of society.

Contributors: Angela Pomaro and Mirko Santoro
Conducted by Valeria Bottalico

Ocean for all. Art for the development of a sign language eco-glossary

With the rise of artificial intelligence, a new frontier emerges in human cognition and experience. Concepts such as consciousness and creativity are constantly redefined by algorithms and code performances. Extraction, manipulation, and radicalization are some of the intensified side effects of applying computational techniques to traditional media. Can adopting radical transparency, decentralization, and the inclusion of non-human perspectives help us steer this new media toward becoming a productive force of sustainability and regeneration? 
One of the central topics of this episode is the concept of deep fakes, an emergent technology with profound societal implications. The episode further delves into its intricacies through a podcast hosted by Marta Peirano, a journalist specializing in technology and power, who is joined by researcher specializing in deep fakes Henry Ajder and human rights advocate and technologist Sam Gregory. Together, they offer invaluable perspectives on the opportunities and challenges posed by synthetic media. 

Credits:
Contributors: Henry Ajder and Sam Gregory
Conducted by Marta Peirano

Decoding Deep Fakes: AI, Ethics, and the Power of Media

TBA21 on st_age is TBA21’s research and commissioning digital space. Based on long-term relationships of trust, it reaches out to bring a multiplicity of voices and contexts into conversation, supporting artist’s needs throughout both research and practice. 

TBA21 on st_age focuses on environmental and social contemporary artistic practices, and presents video, animation, sound, and text works, as well as projects specifically designed to be experienced online. These are accompanied by a series of contextual materials, which make both the work and the research behind it accessible to a broader audience. These materials include artist-curator conversations, editorial podcasts, research clusters, and calls to actions, as well as the backst_age series, which connects the different projects through conversations, video glossaries, and curated views. All featured works remain the property of the artists and authors.

Waters of Connection: Marine Transport, Introduced Organisms, and Inland Ecologies

TBA21 on st_age

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