📋 Tender Overview
To promote ocean literacy international researchers and artists met at an online event hosted by the German Development Institute DIE the German UNESCO Commission DUK and the German Marine Research Alliance DAM to discuss how scientific collaborations are being conducted and art can contribute to raising awareness and imparting knowledge.In order to protect the ocean its ecological function and its role in various forms of human livelihood must be better understood. The term ocean literacy describes this understanding of the meaning of the ocean . The UN Decade for Marine Sciences promotes Ocean Literacyas one of their main goals. However science is not the only discipline that is committed to raising awareness or imparting knowledge. The work of artists often pursues similar goals. Accordingly the question arises as to how science and art affect the ocean. and how they can complement each other in order to promote more holistic forms of understanding of the ocean and thus its protection and sustainable use.On September 28 the German Development Institute DIE together with the German UNESCO Commission DUK and the German Marine Research Alliance DAM organized an online event with international artists and scientists to discuss this question . Sculptor Adrien Segal poet Dr. Craig Santos Perez painter Mbongeni Buthelezi and curator Adrienne Goehler presented their work which among other things deals with the melting of polar ice the rise in sea levels or the pollution of the oceans by plastic and impressively combines information with emotional reactions.How a subsequent panel discussion between the artists Dr. Angela Pomaro from the Italian National Research Council and participants from science civil society and the science and politics nexus showed however that there are still obstacles to raising social awareness through cooperation between science and art. These obstacles arise for example from the specific financing structures of both disciplines which entail limitations in terms of time and content and works of art behind gallery doors and scientific findings behind paywallshide. Developing a common language as well as a mutual understanding of the methods and the specific logic of reputation and recognition in the respective disciplines is also a challenge. Nonetheless the collaboration between science and art has the potential to increase social awareness of the role of the ocean sharpening by combining information with a sense of dismay. This insight forms the basis for recognizing the ocean as a habitat climate regulator and cultural asset and for promoting and demanding its protection.
