Oceanic Memory as Antidote to Collective Amnesia in Art and Ecology

An article in ArtReview Asia's Summer 2026 issue explores how interdisciplinary oceanic studies can counter collective amnesia amid geopolitical and ecological crises. It references Hira Nabi's film 'All That Perishes at the Edge of Land' (2019), featuring a sentient ship, and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran in retaliation for Israeli and US attacks. The text cites Greenpeace International's Mehdi Leman on war's environmental harm, visible in Gaza, Palestine, Iran, Lebanon, and Sudan. Memory studies scholars Susanne Buckley-Zistel and Hanna Teichler are invoked, along with curator Natasha Ginwala, who organized Colomboscope 2019 ('Sea Change') and the January 2026 convening 'Ancestral Ocean: Marine Intersections and Coastlines as Webs' in Colombo, part of her TBA21–Academy fellowship. Artists discussed include M. Palani Kumar (photographer on India's east coast), Ranjit Kandalgaonkar (sound work 'Sounding out the Labour Archive', 2016), Clara Jo (video 'Nests of Basalt, Nests of Wood', 2023, on Mauritius), Charwei Tsai ('Hair Dance', 2012, on Lanyu, Taiwan), Brook Andrew (Wiradjuri/Ngunnawal artist on aqueous mythology), and Razieh Goudarzi ('Indelible', 2023, using soil from Hormuz). Laleh Khalili (Gulf Studies scholar) spoke on ports and the Anglo-Persian Oil Company's transformation into BP. The article draws on Françoise Vergès's 'politics of forgetfulness' and the exhibition 'Indigo Waves and Other Stories' by Ginwala and Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung.