Text by CLOT Magazine
TBA21–Academy fosters a deeper understanding of the ocean, leveraging art to engender creative solutions to the most pressing issues facing the ocean today. The Itinerant Academy is a non-profit, non-collecting organisation that commissions transdisciplinary research designed to build knowledge systems, inspire cultural production, and drive policy change.
TBA21–Academy announced its upcoming 2019 program through spring, including the opening of a new global centre and resource for collaborative oceanic research and discovery in Venice, international residencies and exploratory voyages throughout the Pacific, as well as interactive convenings and workshops around the globe with artists, thought-leaders, scientists, policy-makers, and experts, designed to drive cultural production, new research, and change in support of the oceans.
The main event will be the inauguration of Ocean Space—a new, collaborative global hub for transdisciplinary oceanic research and discovery, housed in the historic Church of San Lorenzo in Venice—with a large-scale installation by pioneering video and performance artist Joan Jonas and the presentation of OceanArchive, a digital platform for oceanic projects.
Following decades of careful restoration and renovation, the historic Church of San Lorenzo in Venice is being given a second life as it relaunches as Ocean Space, a new collaborative platform for research, discovery, and innovation supporting ocean stewardship and conservation.
Ocean Space opens with a major new installation and research project by artist Joan Jonas focused on the seas, building on the artist’s ongoing work with TBA21–Academy. Curated by Stefani Hessler, the installation includes dozens of drawings, mirror sculptures, video installations, and her theatre boxes in a large scale.
The launch of Ocean Space reintegrates the historic church, which has been largely closed to the public for the past 100 years, back within the social and cultural fabric of the city. The space will be activated throughout the week of the Venice Art Biennale in May 2019, including a special live performance by Jonas.
CLOT Magazine will also publish an interview with co-founder and director Markus Reymann, expanding on the aims and goals for the new space in Venice. Reymann also said that 2019 would be a landmark year for TBA21–Academy and the expanded community of artists, scientists, policymakers, and researchers invested in the well-being of our oceans as the creative output of eight years of explorations and research come together with the opening of Ocean Space2.
