Vitenparken

The ocean is not a void

When I first met Elin T. Sørensen, she showed me a landscape architectural plan. Grasslands, roads, plants and residential areas were carefully illustrated, but then at the spring my eyes met a uniform, blank, 2-dimensional surface. Neither terrain nor vegetation was depicted. This was the sea. The illustration spoke clearly, here there was nothing for us humans to see. The sea: a kind of elegant void, a backdrop to our lives.

71% of the globe is covered with water. We live on a blue planet. This is a fact we often hear. But when we think that all of this is under pressure, that marine ecosystems from the Mariana Trench (where a plastic carrier bag was recently found) to the Oslo Fjord (where cod can no longer be fished due to a critically low stock level) are seeing a negative development because of us humans, then one cannot help but be afraid and despair. And it is precisely here that one tends to ask the classic question “Why is no one doing anything?” The answer is fortunately; someone is doing something.

Interdisciplinary BioArt

With NOBA we also want to contribute. It is not enough for someone to just do something, many must do something and they must do it together, across disciplines. Interdisciplinary work and exchange are precisely what we are passionate about at NOBA. Here we believe that real innovation, understanding and creative work can happen. BioArt is an umbrella term for a wide range of art forms that work on the lines between biology and art. BioArtists mix artistic and scientific processes, methods, approaches and tools, and the works are often created in collaboration with other disciplines. In this way, BioArt asks questions about the role of science in society, engages society in bioscientific discoveries and innovations, stimulates dialogue and challenges our relationship with the world around us. NOBA is a project of Vitenparken and is a unique initiative in Norway. We are the first physical arena that focuses on bio-related art in the country and we are located in the heart of the research environments on Campus Ås. The basic idea behind NOBA is that where artists and researchers from biologically related disciplines can meet for mutual inspiration, exchange of expertise and criticism, connections and interactions can arise that promote new ways of thinking and new questions, which in turn can lead to new solutions and reach a wider audience.

Marine-friendly landscaping

This brings me back to Elin's work, which crosses art, marine biology, and landscape architecture. Here, wonder, creativity, and solutions are important, not the boundaries between disciplines. In Norway, as often elsewhere in the world, urban development is driven by human interests. Elin and HAV ask: How can we develop into the sea without destroying life in the water? In HAV, we encounter the kilometer-sized, the micrometer-sized, and all scales in between. Because in creating major changes, in the Oslo Fjord and in the world's oceans, one must understand and listen to microscopic processes and creatures. 

In the exhibition Hav we encounter a dedication to materials. They are non-toxic, marine-friendly, or recycled, such as Jesmonite casts of Cambrian Silurian and homes made of recycled and upcycled technical porcelain. In HAV we encounter Elin's inspiration and collaborators (a myriad of marine animals, plants, and more), process (diving can also be an academic method!) and finally solutions where artistic visions meet marine biology, the tidal landscape, and not least the sea creatures themselves.

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Photo: Joe Urrutia/ Vitenparken