(Un)Tamed Sea

OPENING: Thu, 6 March 2025, 19.00 CET

Symposium: 7—8 March, 2025, More>>

We mostly talk about the sea from the perspective of the land. Despite all we know about land, it’s astonishing how little we understand the sea. This lack of knowledge has always left room for imagination, shaping our perceptions of what the sea is and what it holds. People have found breathtaking beauty in the sea, but also dark depths inhabited by the most fearsome creatures. Nowhere is the horizon, the line separating Earth’s surface from its sky, seen as clearly as it is at sea. That distant horizon is where sky and land meet, a place where anything seems possible, but to reach it, we must first conquer the sea.

The exhibition and the accompanying symposium was created in collaboration with people who care deeply about the sea, the dignity of those who work on it, and the need to transform our relationship with it. It offers fragments and glimpses of the sea’s reality, inviting you to explore what lies beyond the horizon.

The exhibition, produced by the art organization Oaza and the association Drugo More, features works by Robertina Šebjanič, exploring underwater deposits of explosives and ammunition, Igor Eškinja, delving into the history of murex and purple dye, Silvio Vujičić and Miro Roman, who, with the help of the AI SOLL, have studied stories and patterns born from the interactions between the Mediterranean Sea and its coastal inhabitants.

In the discursive program, these artists will explain their reasons for addressing these themes. Furthermore, discussions will also explore the dangers posed by the legacy of military industries in the sea and the risks involved in addressing this issue. Additionally, the exhibition aims to examine the relationship between modern capitalism and the sea, along with its environmental consequences, labor conditions, production and consumption patterns, and the legal framework regulating the sea at various distances from land.

photo: Photo: Borut Brozović / Drugo more

Roberina Šebjanič: Adriatic I: Echoes of the Abyss

‘Adriatic I: Echoes of the Abyss’ seeks to uncover the profound connections between the sea’s perceived vastness and the tangible scars left by human actions. Exploring these intersections through interdisciplinary research and storytelling calls for a deeper understanding of our shared responsibility in addressing these silent threats to life beneath the waves. The project explores the hidden environmental and geopolitical legacy of discarded chemical weapons on the ocean floor. These toxic remnants, often overlooked or ignored, pose significant threats to marine ecosystems and human health.

Building on preliminary research conducted during Robertina Šebjanič residency aboard the TARA research vessel at the Baltic Sea and continued in the frame of MADE IN Platform residency with a focus on the Kvarner region of the Adriatic Sea, this project integrates an interdisciplinary approach, combining art, science, storytelling and craftsmanship to examine the long-term effects of warfare on aquatic environments. Central to the inquiry is the disruption of marine life — whose biological functions and communication systems are altered by human-made pollutants.

Robertina Šebjanič is an artist whose work explores the biological, geo-political and cultural realities of aquatic environments and the impact of humanity on other organisms. In her analysis of the Anthropocene and its theoretical framework, the artist uses the terms ‘aquatocene’ and ‘aquaforming’ to refer to the human impact on aquatic environments. Her works received awards, honorary mentions and nominations at Prix Ars Electronica, Starts Prize, Falling Walls, Re: humanism.

Silvio Vujičić, Miro Roman & SOLL: Mediterranean Space Exploration Suit

The Mediterranean is not land; it is the space between lands. Not a territory, but an abstraction — fluid, shifting, uncontainable. It is the sea, the cosmos, the digital ether. A domain where gods, traders, exiles, lovers, and machines meet, where culture, nature, sex, literacy, and technology reinvent themselves into new forms of existence. The ‘Mediterranean Space Exploration Suit’ by SOLL is not merely apparel; it is an instrument of entanglement, a trap for the restless, a passage that negotiates the real and the rational. It does not protect — it provokes. It does not frame the Mediterranean; it extends it.

For centuries, this sea has been a paradox — both a frontier and a corridor, a site of migration and erasure, of erotic indulgence and violent conquest, of myths encoded in salt and algorithms etched in silicon, all beneath the hot sun. If the Mediterranean once connected and divided lands, it now weaves dimensions — historical, natural, celestial, synthetic, and digital. SOLL’s suit does not memorialize; it activates. In an era of paradoxes, fake news, lost truths, and digital saturation, what does it mean to explore and learn? The ‘Mediterranean Space Exploration Suit’ by SOLL is a proposition, a question posed in matter, data, and myth.

Igor Eškinja: La decouverte de la pourpre (The Discovery of Purple)

Purple color in everyday imagination does not define a single wavelength but rather creates numerous associations that, depending on the period, material, and circumstances, range from red to violet. Traditionally, the color was used for dyeing fabrics since prehistoric times (remains dating back to 7000 BC have been found). The Phoenicians developed the production of purple pigment and fabric dyeing techniques that were highly prized and formed an important part of their economy. Purple was used in the religious rituals of that era, adorned palaces, and was worn by rulers and emperors throughout the entire period of Antiquity.

The purple pigment was produced using murex snails (Hexaplex trunculus), which inhabit the Mediterranean Sea. It took several thousand snails to produce one gram of pigment, and with that gram, only a small amount of fabric could be dyed. The Phoenicians completely depleted the snail resources by the Modern Age, so that already during the Roman period this pigment had become extremely scarce. Since the fall of the Roman Empire, the memory of this phenomenon has been preserved in fragments — in the form of mosaics, myths, or recently discovered historical artifacts.

Colophone

Program concept: Davor Mišković (Drugo more)
Production: Barbara Babačić, Ivana Katić, Dubravko Matanić (Drugo more)
Exhibition coproduction: Oaza (Ivana Borovnjak, Maja Kolar)
Visual identity and art direction: Oaza (Ivana Borovnjak, Tina Ivezić)
Design: Ela Meseldžić
Technical setup of the exhibition: Miro Šarić
Technical support: Cyclorama d.o.o.
Photographer: Tanja Kanazir
Collaborators: Leonida Cris Manojlovski, Lucija Ćurković
Media partner: Kulturpunkt.hr

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