About the ocean project

the Oceanography Project is a collaboration between artists and scientists from the National Oceanographic Centre, Southampton. It aims to create a broad platform for dialogue between scientists and artists, via a critical artistic enquiry into Oceanography and the work of NOCS. The Oceanography Project (2005-7) culminates in an Exhibition at Bargate Monument Gallery in the historic city centre of Southampton, extending into medieval vaults nearby, and coincides with World Ocean Day 8 June 2007.

The National Oceanography Centre at Southampton UK, is one of the world's leading centres for research and education in marine and earth sciences. The centre is home to the NERC RRS ( Royal Research Ships) James Cook and Discovery, as well as ISIS( Europe's deepest diving ROV), AUTOSUB ( AUV) and the National Oceanography Library. The specialist scientists work from satellite imagery right to the bottom of the ocean, including rapid climate change and global warming.

The Oceanography Project grew from informal conversations between scientists and artists from Artel, a Contemporary Artists group based in Chichester in West Sussex. Participating artists have explored different ways to collaborate with scientists, exchanging ideas and discovering differences and some astonishing similarities in our respective models of working. The opportunity to create this wide interface collaboration meets Artel's commitment to raising the profile of the arts in the region through promoting cultural and artistic exchange. The Oceanography Project has in turn provided new areas for artists to investigate.

As well as the creation of new work, commonalities between the working practices of scientists and artists, such as intuition, research, the interrogation of the fact, problem solving and creativity have become evident. This in itself has the power to generate fruitful insights and change perceptions at a time when perceived boundaries between sciences and arts are proving themselves more porous than ever before.

''When you are working at the cutting edge, facts are few and far between" spoken quote by a scientist Today Programme 30/11/06.