Who Speaks for the Oceans?
Miho Hatori, Do Whales Dream of Electric Human? (video still), 2022. Video installation. Courtesy the artist.
September 1 – December 9, 2022
PRESS: New Yorker | The Ticker | The Ticker (Miho Hatori) | The Ticker (Josèfa Ntjam) | e-flux
On September 1, 2022, Who Speaks for the Oceans? opens at Mishkin Gallery, Baruch College, City University of New York. The exhibition proposes new and challenging ways to shift our understandings of and relationships to whales and other nonhuman animals. Through over fifteen interdisciplinary artworks in video, installation, painting, tapestry, music, performance, and more, Who Speaks for the Oceans? analyzes epistemological and historical knowledge built around what we think we know about life in the ocean through the charismatic “whale song.” As we approach a crucial moment concerning the condition of our planet, listening to whale vocalizations and other marine creatures can bring us closer to understanding their needs and encouraging action towards healthier stewardship of the oceans.
Many historic representations of ocean life have been informed by colonial, racialized, gendered, and terra-centric conventions alongside the production of nature, which will be exposed and critiqued through the multiple perspectives of an international and intergenerational group of artists. Traversing a polyvocal marine geography, the artists in Who Speaks for the Oceans? encourage listening beyond normative patterns of consumption. They also consider how technology, assumed to be indexical and scientific, has informed imaginary and fantastical perspectives of non-terrestrial worlds. Some artists in the exhibition play with such perspectives and offer alternative future projections, while others reflect on and amplify overlooked histories.
The first recorded whale vocalizations were publicly released in 1970 through the LP Songs of the Humpback Whale. These recordings were widely distributed through National Geographic as the largest environmental record pressing of all time. They heavily influenced artists and activists alike, while introducing human listeners to empathic perspectives of ocean life. The recording spearheaded the Save the Whales campaign, was played on the floor of Congress, and in-part, helped to ban commercial whaling in the United States. If listening to such sounds inspired monumental change in the 1970s, what can we continue to learn from this history today? Who Speaks for the Oceans? encourages revisiting our relatively new position as stewards of the planet to reimagine creative ways in which listening to one another can lead to action and bring forth equitable futures.
Who Speaks for the Oceans? is curated by Alaina Claire Feldman, Director and Curator of Mishkin Gallery and David Gruber, Distinguished Professor of Biology and Environmental Sciences. Support for this exhibition has been provided by the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences. This exhibition is made possible with support from Etant donnés Contemporary Art, a program of Villa Albertine and FACE Foundation, in partnership with the French Embassy in the United States, with support from the French Ministry of Culture, Institut français, Ford Foundation, Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, CHANEL, and ADAGP. Special thanks to Project CETI.
Artists
Ant Farm, Ursula Biemann, Else Bostelmann, Myrlande Constant, Jacques Cousteau and Louis Malle, Pia Dehne, Miho Hatori, Marguerite Humeau, Will E. Jackson, Joan Jonas, Dominique Knowles, Alvin Lucier, Chris Marker and Mario Ruspoli, Josèfa Ntjam, and Roger Payne
Booklet
Public Programs
Miho Hatori, Do Whales Dream of Electric Human?
Thursday, October 13, 2022, 6pm
Musician and artist Miho Hatori debuted a new sonic performance work commissioned for the exhibition Who Speaks for the Oceans?
Watch on YouTube
Josèfa Ntjam, Holy Water, in Discussion with Mami Wata
Thursday, November 3, 2022, 6:30pm
Josèfa Ntjam debuted a newly commissioned multimedia performance based on mythologies of Mami Wata, speculative fiction, and epistemological categories of race, gender, and species. Video: Sean Hart. Costume: Lydia Rodrigues Collection, which includes pieces by Ligia Dias, Willie Norris Workshop, Camilla Carper and Kovin.
Watch on YouTube
Donika Kelly, From The Renunciations: A Poetry Reading
Thursday, November 17, 2022, 11am
Poet Donika Kelly reads from her newest work. Presented by the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Office and co-sponsored by the Department of Black and Latino Studies and Department of English.
Artist Talk: Ant Farm’s Dolphin Embassy
Thursday, November 17, 2022, 6pm
Online, Zoom
Mishkin Gallery’s Alexandra Tell joins Ant Farm’s Chip Lord and Curtis Schreier for a conversation about Dolphin Embassy, the alluring and complex project which intended to establish democratic relations between cetaceans and humans.
Watch on YouTube
Alvin Lucier’s “Vespers”
Thursday, December 2, 2022, 1pm
In person at the Mishkin Gallery
Baruch Professor Ted Gordon (Music & Fine and Performing Arts) will discuss the origins of Lucier’s work from the late 1960s, and how Vespers was written as a prose score with uniquely evolving instructions. The public is then invited to perform Vespers. All supplies will be provided.
Images
“Who Speaks for the Oceans?” installation view, Mishkin Gallery, 2022. Photo: John Smock.