I could consider exhibitions devoted to the sea, climate change, or nature as events which, rather than pleasing viewers aesthetically, are meant to provoke reflection—or even worse, to induce a sense of guilt. There are reasons for this, because scientific research on the ocean leaves no space for naive optimism. Thus, the subject of water is globally exploited in cultural institutions and art galleries, and artists are beginning to bear a new kind of environmental responsibility, together with scientists and activists.
The Down Deep: Living Seas, Living Bodies exhibition at the State Art Gallery (PGS) in Sopot adopts, for a change, a less pretentious attitude. Instead of a haughty speech, it engages in an interdisciplinary and international dialogue on our relationship with the ocean as a being, our common ancestor. The curatorial trio invited 26 artists who devoted their artistic practices to deepening the water discourse, taking the ocean as a source of inspiration, but also of struggle and fear.
Shortly after the opening in Sopot, I met two of the curators – Eulalia Domanowska and Joseph Constable, with whom I talked about the blurring boundaries between artists and scientists, about questioning philosophical and techno-industrial anthropocentric narratives, and also discussing the most important concepts accompanying the creation of this extensive exhibition.
Daga Ochendowska: The Down Deep exhibition begins with a question: “What does it mean to become ocean?”. How do you understand this concept in the context of curatorial work? How was the collaboration that combines scientific, cultural and local themes, in this case related to the Baltic, carried out?
Eulalia Domanowska: Our starting point was cooperation with the Institute of Oceanology of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) and the fact that, as Sopot is located on the coast, we need to address issues related to the sea. Environmental problems, rising levels of the Baltic Sea, and the real possibility of the disappearance of the Sopot beach in the upcoming years are issues that directly concern the residents, but also have a global dimension.
The project naturally began with discussions with scientists. It was also then that Joanna Gemes, a native of Tricity who has been living in London for years and works in the arts, became involved. When she heard about our plans, she immediately joined in. I also found reading Helen Scales and the series of interdisciplinary meetings, Blue Planet (co-organised with the Institute of Oceanology of the Polish Academy of Sciences), which brought together scientists, artists, activists, and designers involved in ecology, to be significant.
Then, Joanna suggested inviting curator Joseph Constable to collaborate. His experience and way of thinking proved to be crucial. The ocean is a particularly broad topic that requires a precise angle. Joseph suggested a direction, which we then consistently followed.
Joseph Constable: The only thing I would add is that this collaboration resonated with me because of my previous role at the De La Warr Pavilion on the south coast of England – a context not entirely unlike PGS, which is also situated directly by the water. The Pavilion is a modernist building right on the beach of the English Channel, and although I hadn’t curated a group exhibition specifically focused on the ocean before, I had worked with artists who respond closely to architecture, to place, and to the coastal environment. That constant presence of the sea shaped many of the projects I worked on. So, when I joined this exhibition, the idea of engaging with the ocean felt like a natural extension of my earlier practice.
D.O.: The exhibition is organised across three gallery floors. What logic guided you in building this huge structure? Were you aiming for a coherent narrative, or rather for the coexistence of different perspectives and tensions between the works?
J.C.: I would say the latter is more relevant, the coexistence of different perspectives and the tensions between them. At the heart of this exhibition was a desire to resist linear thinking, to avoid containing the works within rigid themes. Instead, we wanted to encourage a more intuitive movement through the galleries.
There were also practical considerations. Each floor of the gallery has a very different architecture and atmosphere, so we decided to embrace those differences. On the ground floor, we worked with low lighting, colour, shadow and sound to create an immersive, slightly disorienting environment – something that might echo the sensation of being underwater. Many works in that space, especially the film pieces and Izabela Pluta’s installation at the back, respond well to that atmosphere.
Moving up to the first floor, the space opens into a much brighter setting, which lent itself to painting and photography – works that require higher light levels. Finally, on the top floor, Ange Leccia’s piece uses the scale of the room to its full potential through a large projection that transforms the space.
So rather than a single, fixed logic, the exhibition grew out of aesthetic intuition, bringing together artists working in different media, at different stages in their careers, and allowing the tensions and connections between their perspectives on the ocean to emerge naturally.
D.O.: Down Deep features works from different periods of the artists’ practice – not exclusively new creations. What was essential for you in composing this selection?
J.C.: One important aspect was thinking about how the works would respond to the specific spaces in the gallery. For example, Izabela Pluta created a new version of a piece she originally showed at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art in Melbourne last year. She reoriented and reconfigured the installation specifically for the back room on the ground floor here, so the work could fully engage with the atmosphere we created there.
But beyond the new adaptations, we also wanted to take a deliberately trans-historical approach. The exhibition includes works made this year alongside the earliest piece in the show, dating from 1928. That range allowed us to treat the ocean not as a contemporary theme that has suddenly become fashionable, but as a subject of deep, continuous consideration.
There is an innate intuition – almost an ancient connection – that artists have had with the ocean for generations. Bringing these works together across time makes that continuity visible.
“There is an innate intuition – almost an ancient connection – that artists have had with the ocean for generations. Bringing these works together across time makes that continuity visible.”
— Joseph Constable
D.O.: How did the collaboration between the three of you unfold while shaping this constellation of pieces?
E.D.: We worked very much as a team. Joseph prepared the initial spatial design of the exhibition, and together we refined it – adjusting certain placements, thinking through aesthetic relationships, and looking for the right correspondences between the works.
For instance, you have Yiannis Maniatakos, who literally paints underwater while diving; nearby are the powerful photographs of Korean divers. On the same floor, we encounter the paintings of Marie Jeschke, who also works with methods shaped by immersion. And then Goshka Macuga’s piece again takes us below the surface.
Many works relate to the deep sea – a space that, until about a century ago, was almost impossible to study. Technological progress has changed that, allowing researchers to explore further and deeper, though we still know far less about the ocean floor than we do about outer space. It remains around 70% unexplored – a territory that fascinates scientists, but also, increasingly in the last few decades, artists.
The oldest work in the exhibition, the film by Jean Painlevé and Geneviève Hamon, shows how early underwater research and cinema required removing sea creatures from their habitats to study and film them in laboratories. Later, as diving methods developed, practices like Maniatakos’s underwater painting became possible. This historical thread runs through the show, revealing how our ways of looking at the ocean have evolved.
J.C.: What you’re describing touches on a key idea for us: the ocean as a collaborator of sorts. And perhaps also as a mysterious one, because so much of it remains unknown.
Many of the artists in the exhibition have an almost uneasy relationship with the ocean as they develop their work. For someone like Marie Jeschke, it’s a constant process of trying to understand the ocean through her painting practice. With Izabela Pluta, there’s both the anxiety of being underwater and a deep pull, an attraction to the depths and the desire to engage with them physically.
This tension between fascination and uncertainty runs throughout the exhibition. It shapes how many of the works were made, and ultimately how they coexist within the show.
D.O.: The theme of water has become strikingly prominent in recent years. More and more exhibitions address the ocean and aquatic environments. Do you see this tendency as a temporary trend or as a direction that will become permanently embedded in artistic practice?
J.C.: I think one reason for this renewed attention is that, as land-based beings, we’re increasingly confronted with the fragility of our own existence, the chaos and destruction we’re witnessing in our ecosystems, including the oceans. At the same time, for centuries we have tried to control, contain or distance ourselves from nature, and by extension from the ocean.
What we’re feeling now are the consequences of that separation. If we accept the scientific hypothesis that life originated in the ocean, then in a sense we are already embedded within it. We’ve simply forgotten this fact! The current surge of interest, both in research and in artistic practice, reflects an attempt to find new ways of reconnecting with the ocean.
There’s also what Eulalia mentioned earlier: new technologies now allow scientists to explore deeper and understand more than ever before. That scientific expansion is inevitably influencing artistic thinking as well.
E.D.: Yes, and some philosophers even suggest replacing the term Anthropocene with Hydrocene, to emphasise the centrality of water as the source of life. For me, this shift in thinking is very meaningful.
What matters now is not only protecting the ocean, but learning how to adapt to the changes that are already happening, because we cannot avoid them. For this, we need scientific knowledge, of course, but I also see artists as an extraordinary medium. Their imagination, sensitivity, and ability to translate research into new visual languages can open perspectives that science alone cannot provide. They make these complex issues perceptible, tangible, and emotionally resonant.
“Their imagination, sensitivity, and ability to translate research into new visual languages can open perspectives that science alone cannot provide. They make these complex issues perceptible, tangible, and emotionally resonant.”
— Eulalia Domanowska
D.O.: Since 2022, you have been focusing on PGS’s development in the direction of ecological projects and collaboration with scientists. How has this influenced your own approach to curating? What do you think about the relationship between art and the social responsibility of institutions?
E.D.: For me, the social responsibility of institutions means reacting to issues that are genuinely important to our environment. At PGS, we started by collaborating with scientists and, gradually, I realised how much it broadens my own approach to curating. These meetings provided me with a wealth of knowledge; compared to what I had known before, it was truly a massive difference. I began to read extensively; I read popular science and scientific literature, as well as reports, and I really got into it.
I think that this is the beauty of our work – every new endeavour allows us to grow intellectually, build our sensitivity, and broaden our horizons. Art exposes us to reality, and projects related to ecology and climate only intensify this. And that is why I believe that a cultural institution ought to be a place that not only exhibits art but also fosters conscious social dialogue.
J.C.: I completely agree. Art institutions can play a crucial role in creating spaces where different kinds of knowledge meet – scientific, artistic, and social. Especially today, when the world often feels unstable or difficult to navigate, these spaces for experimentation become even more important. They allow us to test ideas, to imagine alternatives, to think together.
What I find particularly valuable in projects like this one is their interdisciplinary nature. The boundaries between art, research, and broader social questions become much more porous. An exhibition stops being a single event and becomes part of a longer process – one that includes education, dialogue, and collaboration. And I think that’s where institutions like PGS have a real impact: by treating such projects not as isolated gestures, but as long-term commitments.
D.O.: The themes of water and the sea require a particular sensitivity to change and the lack of fixed forms. Were there any doubts that arose during the preparation of the exhibition that proved to be creative or intellectually valuable? Or perhaps everything “flowed” smoothly, without incident?
J.C.: With twenty-six artists involved, there will always be moments of doubt, or at least uncertainty about how these practices will come together in space, how they will respond to or speak with one another. In many ways, this relies on intuition; you only truly see how a show coheres once you begin installing and the works come to life spatially.
What became especially inspiring for me on a more intellectual level was the research underpinning the exhibition, particularly around diving and the experience of being underwater – both physically and conceptually. A key reference was the work of Melody Jue, author of Wild Blue Media. She writes about the conditions of underwater perception: increased pressure, three-dimensional movement, refraction of light, magnification, and the difficulty of locating sound or orienting oneself in space.
Thinking about the ground-floor gallery as an imaginative medium shaped by these conditions became crucial. Jue is a theorist but also a diver, and many of the artists in the show share this embodied approach – their practices move between studio and the world, between interior and exterior space. When we brought the works together, this shared sense of immersion became very clear.
E.D.: Art is not something that is closed or divided into clearly defined categories. What Joseph is talking about corresponds with what is emphasised by Professor Marcin Węsławski in his catalogue essay: since the sixteenth century, we have become accustomed to dividing reality into fragments, thus losing the bigger picture, the holistic perspective. Yet phenomena are deeply interconnected.
I think that nowadays, more and more often, we try to restore these connections in art, science, and our thinking about ecology. Professor Węsławski reminds us that it is not possible to understand one aspect without the other, as it is all part of the larger whole, which we call the blue planet. This perspective was also very much present throughout the work on the exhibition.
D.O.: In recent years, the role of public institutions in initiating dialogue between art, science and environmental issues has been increasingly discussed. How do you see the role of PGS in this broader landscape – as a local institution, but one with international ambitions and reach?
E.D.: Over the past three years, we have consistently undertaken projects that reinforce this role. We present exhibitions with a strong social dimension, such as the feminist exhibition last year, which was an extensive overview from the 1960s to the present day. This year, we have prepared an exhibition featuring female artists from Berlin and the Tricity, which is still on display at the Kommunale Galerie in Berlin.
We are simultaneously developing projects related to environmental matters, collaborating with scientists, and conducting intensive educational activities, which is especially important to me. Interacting with art in a gallery appeals to the imagination and emotions, but education is especially important for young people, who often spend most of their time in front of screens. Here, they have the opportunity to touch reality and see that art is a living experience. Art education is still very scarce in schools. This is not only the case in Poland. And as someone who previously worked as an educator, both in colleges and universities, I really feel this mission. We have plans with other institutions to strengthen the image of Tricity as a centre for maritime activities, as well as to develop international cooperation, also around this topic.
J.C.: About education – I think Eulalia raises a really important point. Many young people today feel deep anxiety about the future, but at the same time, they have an intuitive and genuine connection to nature and a desire to protect it. Education allows that awareness to grow. It also makes it possible to reach beyond the usual audience – as we say, not just “preaching to the choir,” but opening up conversations with people who may not naturally enter the art world. That’s where institutions like PGS can have a real impact: by creating spaces where these dialogues can begin and evolve.
Down Deep: Living Seas, Living Bodies
October 30, 2025 – April 4, 2026
Państwowa Galeria Sztuki (PGS) in Sopot
