Artists and activists encourage academics to imaginatively empathize with the ocean
Who does the ocean belong to? To states? To everyone? To no one? Without a clear answer to this question, no one feels responsible for protecting marine life, an urgent issue given the contexts of pollution, overfishing, and deep-sea mining. In the ‘Whose Ocean?’ project, scientists, artists, and activists attempted to think from the perspective of more-than-human ocean inhabitants and rewrote the ‘UN High Seas Treaty’ on their behalf. Their biggest achievement? “We showed that it is possible.”
Interview with Birgit Kaiser and Harpo 't Hart on the completed Signature project 'Whose Ocean?', June 2026
The United Nations Ocean Conference, held every few years, bears the subtitle ‘Our ocean, our future, our responsibility.’ Yet, it is unclear exactly who, specifically, that ‘our’ refers to. “As a result, it remains unspoken who has a right to what the ocean offers,” explains Harpo ’t Hart of the Embassy of the North Sea, “but also who can be held accountable when things go wrong, and who is responsible for protecting the ocean.” As an interdisciplinary collective of artists, scientists, and activists, the Embassy of the North Sea contributed to the ‘Whose Ocean?’ project, alongside researchers from various faculties at Utrecht University (UU) and the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ), and artists from the Casco Art Institute. “Our goal was to collaboratively rewrite parts of the UN treaty, reflecting on the rights of the ocean from a previously unheard perspective: that of the ocean itself.”
Jellyfish costumes struck an emotional chord
The project team organized a gathering modeled in the spirit of a real UN meeting. Three working groups, each consisting of around 60 people, represented the ocean, embodying polymetallic nodules, jellyfish, and seagulls. In the span of a few hours, they rewrote a UN treaty passage—advocating for the interests of ‘their’ specific group. “It really came down to the fine print—the placement of commas and periods—just like at UN climate conferences,” says Birgit Kaiser, a literary scholar at Utrecht University. “Representatives from the Embassy of the North Sea and Casco guided the groups. Designer Carly Everaert created special jellyfish, seagull, and polymetallic nodule costumes for the occasion. It might seem like a gimmick, but it genuinely influenced the atmosphere and the level of emotional involvement during the conference.” ’t Hart adds: “I saw people making impassioned pleas advocating in the interest of jellyfish.”
A different vocabulary for each discipline
Kaiser acknowledges the value of transdisciplinary collaboration. “Solving sustainability issues requires every discipline: scientific modeling and technical innovation, but also the imagination and critical perspective offered by the humanities. We have to work together, whether we like it or not.” This process, though, can be challenging. “We speak different languages, each with its own vocabulary. Take the term ‘the ocean,’ for instance. To oceanographers, it is a concept rooted in the natural sciences—a natural habitat. A colleague specializing in mythology, however, views the ocean not as a natural object, but as a ‘someone’ with whom one coexists. And for me, it represents an archive of the various communities transported to other continents—a repository of memories regarding slavery.”
The gift of diverse perspectives
“Despite our different languages, everyone was open to learning from one another,” Kaiser continues. “The prevailing sentiment was: ‘I find what you’re saying fascinating, even if I don’t fully grasp it.’” She made an interesting discovery: no matter how often you explain concepts from your own field to a colleague from another discipline, they inevitably hear something slightly different. “That is because these are not fixed, ‘neutral’ definitions, but scientific perspectives. We remain distinct groups in that regard, even though we have gained a better understanding of each other’s viewpoints.” Kaiser emphasizes that she and her colleagues do not need to arrive at a single, unified perspective. “On the contrary, research’s challenge in the coming decades is precisely to maintain those distinct perspectives. It doesn’t need to become a melting pot.”
More time allows for better ideas
In a transdisciplinary collaboration like this, it is important to take the time to engage with and get to know societal partners, says Kaiser. “Who wants what? Where do sensitivities lie? These questions form the foundation of a successful collaboration. The fact that the output is an event rather than a conventional academic paper also requires extra time; after all, it’s not something you’ve done fifteen times before.” But precisely time is often a problem for academics. Their faculties tell them that projects like this fit into their research time, but writing articles and attending conferences compete for priority. “It would be great if people were given extra leeway for a project like this—for instance, by supervising one less working group. That way, they would feel more involved and come up with better ideas.”
Glitter suited professor
According to Kaiser and ’t Hart, the tangible output—the three rewritten texts—was not the most important aspect of the project. Instead, they frame what the two hundred attendees took away from the gathering as a main part of its impact. “I was pleasantly surprised by how open everyone was to the playful, creative approach,” says Kaiser. The project team had, for instance, agreed to use their clothing to artistically represent the ocean. ’t Hart adds with a laugh: “I certainly didn’t expect one of the professors to go out of their way to create a blue-green glitter suit.” A video of the reading of the rewritten statements has already been screened in various places. “The process itself was the most valuable part,” ’t Hart concludes. “We demonstrated that it is possible, to think about and collaboratively rewrite a UN treaty from a more-than-human perspective. All that’s needed is political will.”