Artworks creating waves for global action on ocean futures

The UQ Art Museum’s upcoming exhibition Mare Amoris | Sea of Love poses timely questions about the role of oceans in personal stories and cultural practices.

Acting Museum Director Peta Rake said the exhibition was part of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development and featured 15 artists and collectives from across the world.

“The UN has identified our ocean health worldwide is at risk, but the role oceans play in personal and cultural belonging, storytelling and exchange isn’t commonly explored,” Ms Rake said.

“The artworks in this exhibition remind us that the ocean’s role on our planet extends beyond our immediate physical health, and into our spiritual, emotional, and cultural wellbeing.

“An essential starting point in developing the exhibition was Yathikpa, an artwork by Maḏarrpa senior leader Djambawa Marawili AM, which was used as evidence in the first successful Native Title claim for an intertidal zone.”

Visitors will be greeted with a new commission by Sonja Carmichael (UQ alum) and Elisa Jane Carmichael, both Ngugi women belonging to the Quandamooka people of Minjerribah / North Stradbroke Island.

“This installation brings together traditional and contemporary weaving and dyeing practices to consider the artists’ responsibility as saltwater people to both the land and sea of Quandamooka Country,” Ms Rake said.

Other artworks featured in the exhibition include a video work by Māori artist Shannon Te Ao, who transforms the repetitive motions of swimming into a meditation and reverence to Ancestors.

Kānaka ʻŌiwi artist Drew Kahuʻāina Broderick’s multimedia artwork challenges the authorship and representation of Hawaiian and Great Ocean history through the medium of a billboard—a banned form of advertising in Hawaiʻi—and a neon ‘Vacancy’ sign.

The exhibition aims to inspire the community to consider the multiple roles that oceans play in our lives, and how we can contribute to the ongoing care of these vital spaces on our planet.

Mare Amoris | Sea of Love is part of the Ocean Decade Network, a framework supporting the UN’s Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development by building and sharing knowledge of ocean spaces and their importance to people and the planet.

The exhibition is part of a series of activities developed by UQ Art Museum as part of their “Blue Assembly” project, in partnership with UQ’s Centre for Marine Science.

Mare Amoris | Sea of Love opens 25 July and continues until 20 January.

A series of free public programs and events will accompany the exhibition:

Tuesday-Friday, 10am-4pm

Saturday, 11am-3pm

A media kit is available for this exhibition.

Media: Alex Tuite, UQ Art Museum, a.tuite@uq.edu.au, +61 477 521 682