Oceans fill our myths and literature with dreams of adventure, discovery, and fearsome sea monsters. Today’s reality is more of over-fished oceans, polluted with plastic, evidence of loss of extraordinary diversity and rising sea levels, posing risks to coastal communities. So, it is timely to have the art exhibition Seas and Oceans still showing at Talk Talk C.E.C. (Cultural Experiences Creator), an art gallery and event centre at La Maison Demeuldre-Coché in Ixelles, Brussels, asking us to look again at what we are doing to our oceans.
The exhibition is a sparklingly rich and diverse collection across the architecturally attractive old ceramic factory. There is too much for a short article, so take this as an introduction and see for yourself the exhibition, still on until the 9 November 2024, the closing evening after an impressively long show that started on 20 April 2023. Following are a few windows onto this exhibition, focusing on the profound beauty of the diversity of life, the impacts of our civilisation’s excesses, exploration and myths.
First – life. The photographer Jean-Vincent Vieux-Ingrassia captures the alien beauty of jellyfish.
These creatures have been around since before the dinosaurs and are spreading as ocean temperatures rise and natural predators, such as turtles, disappear. While many of us are wary of jellyfish and their sting, it is good to be reminded of their beauty – their shape, undulating movement, the patterns on their bodies. We know so little about the immense diversity of marine life. There is so much to discover and uncover. Humankind is spending billions trying to reach the moon and Mars, and for far less, there are mysteries right at home in our oceans – a veritable living library of life and source of inspiration, awe and knowledge on our doorstep.
Sylvain Wavrant’s harrowing sculptures explore animal rights, the protection of nature, and the metamorphosis and hybridisation of people and animals. The first photo below shows animals forced to drink among debris from a shrinking polluted water source, their lives bleached, the organic becoming mineral as they adapt to our “civilisation” and its waste. Only the fox’s tail, a little away from the orbit of humanity, is still lifelike and healthy. We are poisoning nature.
Sylvain’s lying head has wild boar tusks growing from the face and seaweed-encrusted hair. The expression is calm as if sleeping, but the skin has faded white, and a bare, flesh-stripped backbone pokes out of the neck, broken, disconnected from the body. This is death – as if we, in our blindness, become animals and are engulfed by rising oceans, rotting in silence, in peaceful ignorance of what we have done and what we have become. A second powerful criticism and cry that we should heed.
Equally intriguing and disturbing is The Digital Mermaid by Léa Berthy et Valentine Desmier. The plaster mermaid lies broken, and spewing from her innards is the debris of mobile phones – drawing a parallel, I presume, with the plastic bottlecaps, beads, and other bits of plastic that fill the guts of seabirds, fish and sea mammals. Our myths and dreams of mermaids, our historical culture, are killed by digital excess. Another warning to us, asking what type of civilisation we want to become.
Not all seems dark. The graffiti art of Kafé Korsé (part of a 35-meter wall with street artists Mister X and Reves One in collaboration with JPI Oceans) communicates a Jules Vernian type of adventure, showing an underwater explorer among majestic sea creatures such as giant squid. This seems positive and a call to search and research our still largely unknown oceans, but we don’t see a human face in the mask. It is empty. And instead of a trident, the humanoid wields streetlights showing amber and red. Another message? To slow down, stop, and reflect on what path to take?
Odyssey, a four hands painting by Onie Jackson and Guillaume Garrié adopts a more figurative narrative approach inspired by Greek legends but takes elements from across time to create a time travelling sea-scape, with Picassoesque faces and bodies and icons of horses mixed with further simplified forms that seem inspired by Jean-Michel Basquiat’s powerful forms and colours.
It presents an intriguing and rich story worth spending time to decipher. Zeus stands ready with his lightning bolts on the top right, a giant lounges lazily on the top left, and a lyre lies bottom right hinting at Orpheus and the voyage to the underworld, especially given the three tiny figures nearby, suggesting oppressed people or caged souls. Mermaids, ocean beasts and horses encircle two main characters – the grey fisher-archer on the boat being bitten by a sea-snake, and the crowned and red-cloaked king emerging onto the shore. I presume the latter is Odysseus (Ulysses to the Romans) – it is unclear whether his raised left hand is warning us off or beckoning us close. Should we join the adventure and sail with him past the Sirens who sing false songs and tempt us to our demise? The archer-fisherman could be another image of Odysseus struggling with his long journey, rendered grey and less kinglike but resolute. Or maybe the image is of the common man struggling with his own odyssey. After all, we each have our own voyage with trials and rewards in a complex and dangerous world, even though today’s gods, heroes and monsters are different. This painting merits further study.
There is much more in this exhibition that celebrates the seas and oceans and warns us, giving us a choice as to the future. One future is cataclysmic sea-level rise – as shown by the floating sculptures of A Plastic World (made from plastic waste the founder herself collected over three months to create the artwork) by A Strange Bird. But as we’ve seen from the photos of flooding from Valenica, flooding doesn’t come with attractive colours, but mud brown and choked with debris. A Plastic World below is pretty – a warning of a horrendous future if we do not act on time.
Art has the role of being prophetic, to warn as well as to celebrate what we still have and have taken for granted. The exhibition Seas and Oceans, at 141-143 Chaussée de Wavre, Ixelles-Bruxelles is a welcome wakeup call.
The closing event will be on the 9 November from 18:00 to 23:00: see Talk C.E.C. for more details. Podcasts are also being recorded by the organisers to further explain the artworks.
