Offshore: artists explore the sea

Curated by Invisible Dust ’Offshore: artists explore the sea’ will include new and existing works by internationally-renowned artists whose engagement with our seas and oceans resonates with Hull’s own very particular relationship to the sea. This is an exciting first joint exhibition for Ferens Art Gallery and Hull Maritime Museum, where the audience will have the opportunity to not only view contemporary art in the gallery but also among objects such as whale bones and ships models in the Maritime Museum. The city’s rich maritime heritage developed from a thriving medieval port, up to the UK’s 3rd biggest port in the early 20th century.  A century later changes in maritime industries would bring seismic shifts to this economic and social landscape. Today, while Hull’s docking industry still thrives, the city’s residents, like many others across the world have had to reassess their relationship to the sea, estuaries and rivers, where today, rising sea levels and flooding from climate change threaten Hull’s future.

New works by Badgers of Bohemia, Kasia Molga, Martin Parr, Bik Van Der Pol, Saskia Olde Wolbers, Mariele Neudecker, Phil Coy, John Wedgwood-Clarke and Rob Mackay, Jonathan Baldock and Ian J Brown, author China Miévilleas well as existing works by Tacita Dean, John Smith, Adam Chodzko, Alexander Duncan, Tania Kovats, David Malone, Verena Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Emily Richardson, Shimabuku, Zineb Sedira, Lawrence Lek and others, will be shown alongside selected work from the Gallery and Museum’s collection of fine art and maritime objects for what marks a major and ambitious collaboration between the two museums.

‘Offshore: artists explore the sea’ examines people’s relationship to the oceans as a source of food and energy, a dumping ground for waste and the reference point for many of our most haunting and significant myths.  Through a range of media these artists pose questions about our connection to and use of the sea. Invisible Dust has developed relationships between some of the artists with marine biologists and ecologists from Oxford, Southampton and Hull Universities. Being informed and influenced by the science is providing new stimulus to the artists’ ideas.adam