Oceans cover more than 70 percent of the Earth’s surface, dividing and connecting humans, who carry saltwater in their blood, sweat, and tears. They also represent a powerful nonhuman force, rising, flooding, heating and raging in unprecedented ways as the climate crisis unfolds. Artists have envisioned the sea as a sublime wilderness, home to mythical creatures and bizarre species, a source of life and death, a site of new beginnings and tragic endings, both wondrous and disastrous. From migration to melting ice caps, the sea is omnipresent in international news and politics, leaking into popular culture and proliferating in recent art and exhibitions. This anthology gathers artists and writers to address the ocean not only as a theme but as a major agent of artistic and curatorial methods.

Artists surveyed include

Bas Jan Ader, Eileen Agar, John Akomfrah, Heba Y. Amin, Shuvinai Ashoona, Betty Beaumont, Leopold & Rudolf Blaschka, Heidi Bucher, Marcus Coates, Tacita Dean, Ellen Gallagher, Ayesha Hameed, Barbara Hepworth, Klara Hobza, Isuma, Brian Jungen, Tania Kovats, Sonia Levy, Armin Linke, Lani Maestro, Ana Mendieta, Kasia Molga, Eleanor Morgan, Wangechi Mutu, Jean Painleve and Genevieve Hamon, Allan Sekula, Shimabuku, Christine & Margaret Wertheim, Alberta Whittle.