Press Release

Down Deep. Living seas, living bodies is a major group exhibition and research project that explores our physical, emotional, and spiritual interrelation with the ocean. Presented at the Sopot State Art Gallery (PGS) in partnership with the Institute of Oceanology of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IO PAN) and the University of Gdańsk, the exhibition begins from the gallery’s location on the Baltic Coast and expands to a wider contemplation of oceanic space through a constellation of international artists.

International ongoing exhibitions

Down Deep. Living seas, living bodies

State Art Gallery, Sopot (Poland)

30.10.2025 - 04.04.2026

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Central to Down Deep. Living seas, living bodies is the question of what it means to become ocean—to return our human bodies to the vast body of water that covers most of the Earth. Scientists have long sought the origins of life in the ocean, from tide pools and hot springs to the now-prevailing theory that life began near deep-sea hydrothermal vents, where chemical and energetic processes could have sparked evolution.

Starting from this hypothesis of life’s oceanic beginnings 3.5 billion years ago, the exhibition considers our innate connectivity to water—how we came into being and continue to exist as part of a collective species. It resists the philosophical, religious, and techno-industrial lineage of anthropocentrism that has long divided humans from their environments. If we were to release these binds of human exceptionalism, how might we understand ourselves as part of a greater, enveloping body of life, existing in communion with the deep rhythms of the ocean?

Conceiving the ocean as a sentient entity, Down Deep. Living seas, living bodies draws upon James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis, which imagines Earth as a self-regulating super-organism capable of maintaining habitable conditions for life. Ocean ecologist and diver Glenn Edney extends this idea, proclaiming that “the ocean is alive… a global, living ecosystem; a self-regulating whole, more than the sum of her physiological parts.” Through processes of respiration, circulation, and metabolism, and through the energies of its many life forms, the ocean emerges as a vast intelligence—an “ocean mind” founded on interbeing and interdependence.

It is through these notions of collective and nonhuman intelligence that Down Deep. Living seas, living bodies explores the many layers of oceanic space, drawing upon fields such as ocean humanities, environmental studies, quantum biology, cybernetics, theories of consciousness, science fiction, poetry, and indigenous knowledge. The exhibition proposes that by understanding the ocean as a living system, we can also rethink our place within it—not as conquerors or observers, but as participants in an ongoing dialogue of matter, movement, and meaning.

Through acts of speculation, invention, and transformation, visitors to Down Deep.Living seas, living bodies will encounter artists who tell new stories about our oceanic connection. Their works invite us to reimagine the realities of division, extraction, and pollution that define humanity’s current relationship with the sea. In the face of ecological crisis and relentless oceanic devastation, the exhibition asks: how can we think, feel, and imagine more fluidly? How might we loosen the boundaries of our bodies and minds, lose our sense of linear time, and inhabit spaces of wonder and drift—spaces where we can begin to become ocean?

As a realm of “contextual richness, emotional depth, and interdependence,” the ocean offers a powerful model for interspecies communication and coexistence across time and space. Down Deep. Living seas, living bodies seeks to harness the possibilities of this vast and sentient body—to explore it both as a collaborator and as a source of knowledge that transcends the human.

In bringing together artists, scientists, and thinkers, the project reflects a growing awareness of the ocean not as a passive environment but as an active, intelligent force shaping life on Earth. It invites us to listen to its multiple voices—biological, chemical, spiritual, and poetic—and to rediscover our place within its living currents.

Ultimately, Down Deep. Living seas, living bodies is both a call and an invitation: to dissolve the boundaries between species, between bodies and waters, and to sense anew the pulse of the planet that flows through every living thing.

Artists: Agnieszka Kurant, Akvilė Anglickaitė, Alex Ayed, Ange Leccia, Barbara Hammer, Cecylia Malik, David Gumbs, Dorothy Cross, Goshka Macuga, Hyung S. Kim, Izabela Pluta, Jean Painlevé, Julia Lohmann, Kati Roover, Kristina Õllek, Kuba Bąkowski, Laetitia Yhap, Marie Jeschke, Rasa Smite & Raitis Smits, Raqs Media Collective, Seba Calfuqueo, Sky Hopinka, Superflex, Xawery Wolski, Yan Tomaszewski, Yiannis Maniatakos.

Curators: Joseph Constable, Eulalia Domanowska, Joanna Gemes.

Exhibition 30 October 2025 - 04 April 2026. State Art Gallery, Sopot, Plac Zdrojowy 2 - Sopot, 81-720 (Poland).

Hunga Tonga (still), 2019. Photo: SUPERFLEX