Arts > Exhibitions

Can the seas survive us?

Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts

19/03/25

View full gallery of 8 photos, taken by Layla Norman

 Part 1 Layla Norman 

Adjacent to the UEA campus, the Sainsbury Centre, filled with levels of globally revered artistry, warmly welcomed us to their press release for the thought provoking ‘Can the sea survive us?’. We were introduced to the contemplative exhibition by Jago Cooper, the passionate director of Sainsbury Centre. He spoke of his intentions in creating a different approach to exhibitions, one which explores taking a question surrounding culture and nature, particularly one people might want the answer to, and using the art they exhibit as a catalyst and educative source to find the answers themselves as they explore. With this question in particular though, Jago explains that one of many reasons they felt the sea to be principal within the discussion of climate change was due to the ocean being an undeniably huge driving force, especially in the environmental system we rely on. As such, it’s pivotal to see how humans live through it. Because whilst the ocean provides so much for us, we seem to be taking a lot from it, detrimentally so.

 

Led by John Kenneth Paranada down and under to the first gallery, seemingly doused in blue light to mimic the feeling of the deep sea, various pieces of art crossed my vision. Including, ‘The Urge to Sit Dry’ (2018) by Boris Maas who uses an unassuming chair to demonstrate how sea levels are estimated to rise if we don't take action. But what most stood out to me was ‘The New Portrait of Our Planet’ (1960) by Kenneth Fagg and Tony Petruccelli showing what our planet would look like without the vastness of the ocean; utterly barren and on the face of it, lifeless. Directly opposite on the other wall is ‘Midnight Zone’ (2024) by Julian Charriere who, using a fresnel lens, sinks into the deep ocean to emphasise the risks of deep-sea mining. Though both pieces seemed different in what they presented, once assessed further, you realised they are not so dissimilar. Humans mine the ocean for minerals and resources, explored in Midnight Zone, and the work of Kenneth Fagg and Tony Petruccelli shows the earth without the oceans, all the minerals and resources humans mine for laid bare, almost like a true perception of how humans view the planet, and in this case, the sea. A different perspective perhaps, to consider.

 

 The New Portrait of Our Planet, Kenneth Fagg & Tony Petruccelli, 1960 (see image in the gallery)

 

Taken further down, canvases depicting the tragedy that affects the coastal lines of our country and how, subsequently, that is changing the overall landscape, cover the walls. One standout piece in particular is ‘Fanfare 34’ (2010) by Julian Perry depicting a caravan standing on a piece of a land that has since departed from the edge of a cliff due to rising sea levels and costal erosion.

 

 Julian Perry, Fanfare 34, 2010 (see image in the gallery)

 

Into gallery two, 17th and 19th century art from the Dutch Golden Age illustrate how these seascapes offer a more romanticised perspective of the sea in contrast to the imminent tragedy demonstrated by global warming. In comparison, right next to these age-old paintings, ‘Drift’ (2019),  a sculpture by Eva Rothschild offered a new perspective using sea barriers to show that nature and the sea is oftentimes uncontrollable.

 

 

Eva Rothschild, Drift (2019) (see image in the gallery)

  

The most intriguing part of this exhibition was Samoan and Japanese artists Yuki Kihara’s ‘Darwin in Paradise Camp’, a brilliantly queer, culturally rich, and educational approach to climate change, colonialism, and culture in the Pacific. Her archival research highlights how climate change affects the Pacific Islands and their close proximity to the sea. She also takes the work of Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) and creates her own images due to her beliefs that Gaugins paintings were influenced by colonial images from Samoa, the one that stood out to me due to its vastness and beauty was ‘Fonofono o le Nuanua, Patches of the Rainbow (after Gauguin)’ (2020). She is quoted in a Financial Times article saying: “There is political intent behind what I’m doing: It’s to take power back from western canonical art history, to reclaim our place as an indigenous third gender community in the Pacific…” making her art and research incredibly important.

 

 

Yuki Kihara, Fonofono o le Nuanua, Patches of the Rainbow (after Gauguin), 2020 (see image in the gallery)

 

She also criticised biologists Charles Darwin’s research for purposely withholding manipulating his research to conform to Victorian society. His research suggested that same sex attraction in animals was unnatural, which is untrue. Using a stunning array of drag, Kihara educated us on the fish species with ‘Fa’afafine traits’ that surround the Samoan archipelago. I didn’t want to leave Kiharas showcase, but sooner than I wanted, the tour came to an end. 

 

 

Yuki Kihara, Darwin Drag, (2025) (see image in the gallery)

 

The art itself washed over one’s mind like a tsunami of wonder. It exhibited the disparities of humans' destructive nature when it comes to the environmental effects we have on the sea, whilst preserving and presenting the natural beauty of the environment, one that is detrimental to our ecosystem and the survival of it . It was nothing short of illuminating. In the end, I was left inundated with knowledge and preoccupying questions, one of which felt contrary to the one presented by the exhibition: Can we survive without the sea? It is a question with such an obvious answer, that it made me wonder once more, why in the world are we not treating it better?

 

 

 

 

Part 2 Eve Wellings 

Can the Seas Survive Us? opens at the Sainsbury’s Centre this weekend. It asks us to question: how will we survive as our seas rise, warm, and acidify? A question we’d rather avoid, but art feels like a welcoming way for us to face the reality of our planet’s fragile future. 

Norfolk is seemingly one of the UK’s poster children for coastal erosion. Our coastal towns, year after year, are battered by the elements, their shorelines shrinking as the sea reclaims what was once solid ground. But it’s not just the land at risk - the waters themselves are changing. Happisburgh and Runton? The cliffs are practically crumbling away. Great Yarmouth and King’s Lynn? A grotesque soup of waste and sewage. One piece in the exhibition - Julian Parry’s ‘Bungalow on Beach and Cliffs at Covehite’ (2019) - offers a direct representation of the effects of rising sea levels in East Anglia: an oil painting of a bungalow crumbled into the sand below the cliff. 

Split into three exhibitions, the first A World of Water plunges deep into our evolving marine ecosystems, as well as the historical trade links between Norfolk and the Netherlands, with works from the Norwich School of Painters and the Dutch Golden Age artists who inspired them. Out of the three exhibits, A World of Water was the real deep dive into the more pressing realities of how we treat our waters and our attempts at averting the worst scenarios. 

To shape Can The Seas Survive Us?, curator John Kenneth Paranada took a group of artists, curators, and academics on a 36-hour journey across the North Sea. Traveling from Yarmouth to Rotterdam, they sailed on a historic fishing boat built in Lowestoft over a century ago.

The sheer variety is overwhelming: antique maps, a 1960 LIFE magazine illustration depicting a world stripped of water - perhaps a reflection of how the ocean, even now, remains a mystery - atlases, sculptures, films, contemporary and 18-19th paintings. It’s a visual feast, but one that leaves you with an undeniable sense of unease and wonder.

The sculptures confront you with the stark reality of our impact on the sea. Its impact on us like a relentless boxing match. Eva Rothschild’s ‘Drift’ (2019) is an accumulation of red and white blocks, representing a sea defense, with an overflow of cast objects that look similar to cans. Julian Charriere’s ‘Pacific Fiction’ (2016) is an installation critiquing the environmental and political consequences of Cold War-era nuclear testing - showing the lasting damage we’ve done to the Pacific. De Onkruidenier’s ‘Spiral Tap’ (2024) a dripping tap that’s seemingly bent in many directions by the sheer water waste.

But the standout of the entire exhibition was undoubtedly Boris Maas’ ‘The Urge to Sit Dry’ (2018). Just a solitary oak chair, perched high above the ground, loomed over viewers. And not like the heroic safety of a lifeguard’s seat, but as a silent warning. Its height represents where it would need to be by 2100 to remain above rising sea levels. Having this as a marker really set things in stone for me. A looming reality of what will come.

There’s an undeniable sense of urgency in the art presented and a distinction between past admiration and present alarm. John Sel Cotman is one of the Norwich School of Painters featured in the exhibition. His painting of the River Wensum offers earthy palettes and gentle sunlight illuminating calm waters, evoking a sense of peace and harmony with nature. The water here feels timeless - a beautiful, almost eternal presence. In stark contrast, Hambling’s ‘Wall of Water VIII’ (2011) plunges into expressionism with its unsettling, turbulent whirlpool of dark blues, ominous blacks, and toxic pinks, serving as a raw, visual warning of the environmental catastrophe we face. 

Another piece that immediately draws the eye is Olafur Eliasson’s ‘Shore Compass’ (2018).  A delicate yet striking study of balance and direction, the piece draws a deep connection between the natural world and our shifting environment. With driftwood found from a remote beach in Iceland poking through a turquoise blue ring, it floats in delicate balance, mirroring the north-south axis. 

There are many dystopian visions of our future presented in Can the Seas Survive Us?. Both Josh Kline’s film ‘Adaptation’ (2019-2022) and Koen Taselaar’s ‘Radical Furniture for Radical Times’ (2019) were two that stood out. In Kline’s film, divers navigate the submerged remains of New York’s skyscrapers, imagining a near-future world where we’ve adapted to live with disaster. A standout quote: “Contagion in water. Human hairs. Human aspirations and dreams… There is oxygen in the water but not for you.” Taselaar's pink-toned tapestry offers a different type of future, threatening us with the idea that as temperatures rise, octopuses may inherit the seas. 

The exhibition also features two other sections alongside A World of Water. Darwin in Paradise Camp sees Yuki Kihara explore Darwin’s views through the lens of queer aesthetics, highlighting how he misrepresented non-heteronormative creatures in the Samoan archipelago, downplaying same-sex attraction in the natural world. Whilst Sea Inside features more experimental contemporary artworks exploring what it’s like to live underwater.

Can the Seas Survive Us? strips away the myth of the ocean as an infinite, untouchable entity. Instead, it reveals the harsh reality: the sea is fragile, vulnerable, and undergoing profound change, just as we are.