Journal of Curatorial Studies

Over the past decade a wave of ocean-themed exhibitions has swelled in international and interdisciplinary contexts. Ranging from large-scale permanent displays in national museums to transient exhibitions of contemporary art, this surge of curatorial activity corresponds to rising public and scientific knowledge about the ecological devastation of the world’s oceans. This special issue of the Journal of Curatorial Studies is the first major scholarly investigation of this recent field of oceanic exhibition making and its heritage. Surfacing alongside sea-related scholarship in the Blue Humanities, it investigates how curatorial practice can uniquely contribute to understanding the complex relationships between marine wildlife, ocean ecosystems and human activity at this time of environmental crisis. The issue charts and critically reflects on the recent exhibitionary turn to the sea, examining various ways art and science are brought together to address ocean ecology. 

Contributions investigate curatorial activity across wide-ranging global regions and in contexts including museums of natural and maritime history, contemporary art exhibitions and artistic practice. They engage with notions of ecology both in terms of the entanglements of humans and nonhumans, as well as with regards to wildlife protection. Watery thinking and feminist, queer, decolonising and new materialist frameworks are mobilised throughout to investigate multispecies ways of being and ecologies of display. Curating the Sea marks a significant and timely interdisciplinary contribution within curatorial studies. 

This special issue expands upon the symposium Curating the Sea: Ecological Vulnerability and the Oceans in Contemporary Exhibitions, held at the Institute of Advanced Studies, University College London in April 2018. 

Contributors 
Marion Endt-Jones (University of Manchester), Stefanie Hessler (Kunsthall Trondheim), Celina Jeffery (University of Ottawa/Ephemeral Coast) and Curating the Sea project founders Pandora Syperek and Sarah Wade. 

Link to the publication here.