Money, Ruins, and the Sea
https://www.neme.org/blog/money-ruins-and-the-sea-press
On Friday, 18 November, at 7:30pm NeMe and curator Irini Mirena Papadimitriou are pleased to invite you to the opening of the exhibition, Money, Ruins, and the Sea.
Throughout the ages, seas and oceans have been, and continue to be providing immense resources to many people and countries worldwide. A source of food, jobs, energy, minerals, goods and services, a host for our vast internet data travelling through undersea cables, as well as a site for trading routes, cross-cultural exchange and migration, the sea and ocean have always been central to many industries and world economies.
Today, more than 90% of goods we consume are transported around the world through our seas and oceans. Pretty much everything we are surrounded by has arrived to us after being on a long journey across the world in a shipping container. Seeing the amount of vessels and sea traffic on any real-time tracking map, makes the ocean look more like a congested avenue, rather than the place one would imagine it to be.
The ocean has become a factory to satisfy our needs and greed, but also a place of deregulated labour, human and natural resources exploitation and conflict; A site where economic activities and freeports dream of tax exemptions, and potentially a utopia for the land’s elite to escape from regulations, governments and national borders in floating islands, modified cruise ships, or repurposed oil platforms.
Our seas and ocean absorb greenhouse gases and generate oxygen, storing big amounts of CO2 and playing a significant role in climate change mitigation. And although more than two thirds of our planet’s surface is covered in water, we have still managed with ongoing and ever expanding pollution, toxic activities and discharges to be causing the fast acidification and warming of waters that can have catastrophic consequences for our planet. Not to mention the amount of plastic in our oceans that could exceed fish by 2050.
At a time when companies are pursuing deep sea mining activity to harvest sought after minerals and metals, and with a growing demand for powering up our electronics and electric cars, if ocean exploitation operating without rules continues to grow, what would this mean for the future of the planet, human and non-human entities?
Money, Ruins, and the Sea is an invitation to critical conversations about how money and finance impacts our seas, ocean environments and marine life, and an exploration of potential alternative economies and futures of the sea, as presented by the artists and scholars in the exhibition.
Participating Artists
Ursula Biemann, FRAUD, Kyriaki Goni, Vladan Joler, Nye Thompson, Liam Young, Robertina Šebjanič, Xandra van der Eijk.
Events calendar
Exhibition opening: Friday, 18 November 2022, 7:30pm – 10pm.
Seminar: Saturday, 19 November 2022, 6:30pm. Speakers: Ismail Ertürk, Irini Mirena Papadimitriou, Ingeborg Reichle, Xandra van der Eijk.
Workshop: Sunday, 20 November 2022, 11:00am
Opening days/times: Tuesday-Friday, 5:30pm-8:30pm
Exhibition duration: 18 November 2022 – 16 December 2022
Venue
NeMe Arts Centre
Corner of Ellados and Enoseos streets
3041 Limassol
Cyprus
