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The Sea and the City, arts and marine sciences in public space

Uplift local voices, create awareness and raise ocean literacy


Bring your research and local issues

In public space

Contact for workshop 2025
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In public space provides an arts driven workshop dedicated to your individual research.

It results in viualizing and staging local voices, marine sciences and the human relation to the oceans through illustration by professional artists.

The presentation in public brings together scientists, politicians, stakeholders and communities beyond official councils to learn from each other, appreciate the oceans and find joint solutions for the seas in crisis.

Trages group and audience: research groups, stakeholders and communities


FOOD (9 themes)
based on anthropological interviews with cooks of Águilas at the Mediterranean.

1. The art of the kitchen, the smells, that take you somewhere else, your grandmother: that’s art. (Food) 2. My grandmother did the cooking. We were 25 and lived in a small house. I was surprised because when I opened the fridge, it was always empty. But at lunchtime there was always a first course, a second course, a dessert. I don’t know how she did it. (Food) 3. For me it was magic. She didn’t explain anything, but I always watched her. (Food) 4. I couldn’t describe my kitchen without the sea. Impossible. The sea gives me everything. (Food) 5. Can you give me your Facebook…? – No, I don’t have Facebook. – Instagram? – I don’t have it. – Do you have a cell phone with a camera? – No. […] I didn’t like technologies, I liked cooking. (Food) 6. In summer, I was always at the port, at the dock. I grew up there. (Food) 7. The fishermen convinced themselves that bitten fish lost blood in the sea and were therefore tastier. They cooked these for themselves on the boat. (Food) 8. There were only three places I could work: as a diver, in the supermarket or at the restaurant. I ended up in the restaurant. (Food) 9. You have bilge smells, diesel oil and the engine, smell of the deck, from the fish scales, from the wet net of the sea, […]. My father liked Fandango and I like Heavy Metal. (Food)


FISHERY (8 themes)
based on anthropological interviews that describe their stakeholders attitude towards the sea

1. Fishermen feel that decisions are made based on statistics, and no one listens to their local knowledge and concerns. (Fishery) 2. My boat is named after my grandfather, because he died at sea. (Fishery) 3. And if I were to be born again, again I would become a fisherman. (Fishery) 4. We are friends, very close friends. (Fishery) 5. Most fishermen would describe their relationship with the sea as »amoodio« (a love-hate relationship). (Fishery) 6. No one understands how hard this work is. But instead of acknowledging that, they treat us like delinquents. (Fishery) 7. Every time they go out to sea to fish, it is an adventure with an open end. One never knows. (Fishery) 8. I keep a friendship with the fish. I throw the little ones – which are like babies – back into the sea. (Fishery)


SCIENCE (13 themes)
based on interviews and TED Talks with scientists on marine science

1. 95% of our oceans remain unexplored. (Science) 2. There are animals out there that do truly astounding things. (Science) 3. Think big! Idea for a Posidonia fan club all around the Mediterranean Sea. (Science) 4. Every summer I bring onto the deck of this little boat of ours more and more things that we know very little about. (Science) 5. Posidonia is able to soak up 15 times more carbon dioxide than a similar sized piece of the Amazon rainforest. (Science) 6. More than half the oxygen we breathe is provided by the ocean. (Science) 7. All life on our planet came from the water. The ocean is the cradle of our existence. (Science) 8. Between 20 – 30% of the species in the Mediterranean only live here – and nowhere else in the world. (Science) 9. Many things that we assume to be exclusive to multicellular organisms are actually already present in unicellular organisms. (Science) 10. Meet your cousin Tritonia Nudibranch! (Science) 11. Meet your cousin Purple-painted Hypselodoris! (Science) 12. The older fish become, the more offspring they can have. (Science) 13. We don’t have to go too deep to reach the unknown. (Science)



LOCALITIES (3 themes) 
based on local stakeholders views

What do you love most about Águilas? (Águilas local) Águilas is a city like many in the Mediterranean. It serves as a model. (Águilas local) How about gardening? (Águilas local)

The event provides the exhibition as a platform for workshops and lectures within your community.

It brings together scientists, artists and stakeholders to learn and share stories and knowledge about the ocean to appreciate the crucial relation between humans and the sea.

Within creative workshops we build a joint memory about the seas to increase ocean literacy.

The Águilas series states special facts about the city, and the Mediterranean sea, and requests the citizens’ relationship towards the sea.


The 33-pieces edition originated during ¡vamos, simbiosis!, 2022. It relates to marine science and local issues of Águilas, the collaborating Spanish city of the project. It was applied as a campaign on public information boards while a selection was exhibited in an enlarged version (140 cm) on movable walls on the centre square of the city, Plaza de España. The campaign fostered the public dialogue and awareness about man and sea as well as introduced the project.

Scientists
Prof. Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado
Dr. Roos Gerritsen
Dr. Tanja Granzow
Prof. Nikolas Jaspert
Prof. Steffen Lemke
Prof. Iñaki Ruiz-Trillo
Prof. Aaron Straight

Artists, Illustrators
︎︎︎Katrin Funcke, Kristina Heldmann and Stefan Michaelsen

Prints on moisture resistant paper
Paper edition: 29,7 x 42 cm
© The artists, 2021/22