Connecting Oceans in Conversation

This event is co-curated by Radar and Curating the Sea, a long-term collaborative research project by Dr Pandora Syperek (Loughborough University London) and Dr Sarah Wade (University of East Anglia). It brings together three artists whose work engages with oceans, waterways and the politics of how we exist alongside them.

Harun Morrison is an artist and writer whose work takes many forms in its explorations of social and environmental justice and ecology; from community gardens, to rethinking traditional sea songs, to a deck of cards or a board game.

Sonia Levy has a research-led filmmaking practice; her Radar-commissioned film Creatures of the Lines (2022) explores how desires for economic growth and linear progress has produced straightened forms in England’s watery terrains.

Gabriella Hirst works primarily with moving image, performance, and with the garden as a site of critique and care; her recent work Ambergris delves into myths of living within whales.

More details on Harun Morrison’s workshop

Flowing Streams: Co-develop a water themed board game

You begin as a raindrop in a cloud. Flowing Streams is a water-themed board game in progress. You are invited to co-develop the rule system and game play, using a board and set of icons as prompts. Participants are encouraged to informally create and test new rules and objectives as a way of thinking about the cultural, industrial and meteorological roles of waters.

Accessibility 

There is step-free access into the building and lifts to all floors. 

If you have any access requirements or anything you would like us to be aware of when running the event, please let us know via the booking form or email LUArts@lboro.ac.uk in advance of booking and we will do our best to accommodate them.

This event is generously funded by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.

About the artists:

Sonia Levy is an artist and research-led filmmaker based in London, with a background in the Experimental Programme in Arts & Politics at Science Po, Paris. Her practice operates at the confluence of diverse knowledge practices, inquiring about Western expansionist and extractive logics. She is the 2023-24 European Marine Board artist-in-residence, contributing to the UN Ocean Decade. In 2022, Levy was the selected artist for the S+T+ARTS4Water residency hosted by TBA21-Academy in Venice. Levy was a participant in the 2020 Artquest’s Peer Forum ‘Rewilding’ at the Horniman Museum and Gardens. She has exhibited, published and lectured in the UK and internationally, including at Centre Pompidou, Paris; Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, Paris; Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris; ICA, London; BALTIC, Gateshead; Obsidian Coast, Bradford-on-Avon; Goldsmiths College, London; The Showroom, London. She is an Associate Lecturer at the Royal College of Art, School of Architecture and the co-convenor of the collective howlikeareef.net. Additionally, she is a member of the Steering Committee at the UN Ocean Decade Coordination Office on Connecting People and the Ocean. Furthermore, she is an external member of the Centre for Critical Global Change at Goldsmiths, University of London. Currently, she is a guest researcher at THE NEW INSTITUTE Centre for Environmental Humanities (NICHE), Ca’ Foscari University.

Harun Morrison is an artist and writer based on the River Lea and Regent’s Canal. He is currently an associate artist with Greenpeace UK. His forthcoming novel, The Escape Artist will be published by Book Works in 2025. Since 2006, Harun has collaborated with Helen Walker as part of the collective practice They Are Here. He is a former trustee of the Black Cultural Archive (est. 1981). Recent group exhibitions include Chronic Hunger, Chronic Desire in Timisoara, Romania; BALATORIUM Disturbed Waters in Veszprém, Hungary as part of the European Capital of Culture 2023 programme; and Storm Warning: What does climate change mean for coastal communities? at Focal Point / Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange, UK. Recent solo exhibitions include Dolphin Head Mountain at the Horniman Museum, London (2022 -23); Mark The Spark at Nieuwe Vide project space in Haarlem, Netherlands (2022); and Experiments with Everyday Objects, Eastside Projects, Birmingham, (2021). Harun is currently co-developing community gardens in Merseyside for Bootle Library and Mind Sheffield, a mental health support service, as part of the Arts Catalyst research project Emergent Ecologies.

Gabriella Hirst (she/her) is an artist and writer. She was born and grew up on Cammeraygal land and is currently living in Berlin. She works primarily with moving image, sculpture, performance, and with the garden as a site of critique and care. Gabriella’s practice explores the politics of capture. She is interested in how art and archival structures attempt to keep dynamic places, objects, people and stories in a state of stasis. She is inspired by eco-feminism, plant stories, cinema history, and science fiction. Gabriella studied at the College of Fine Arts and the National Art School, Australia, and received an MFA at the Slade School, London in 2013, as recipient of the John Crampton Scholarship. She is the recipient of the 2020 ACMI/Ian Potter Moving Image Commission, the Marten Bequest Scholarship, and the Sidney Power Institute Prize. Gabriella's recent projects have been exhibited and commissioned by the Kunsthalle Osnabrück (DE), CARA (USA), Focal Point Gallery (UK), The Art Gallery of New South Wales and the Australian Center for the Moving Image (AU).

Image: Flowing Streams, Harun Morrison (image credit: JP Friberg)