Seabed Sanctuary Submission to IMMA’s open call for Earth Rising Festival 2025
Project Concept
‘Our task is to make trouble, to stir up potent response to devastating events, as well as to settle trouble waters and rebuild quiet places’ Donna J. Haraway
Twelve Artists from Seabed Sanctuary Collective are proposing a programme of summer workshops and events in Co Cork. In collaboration with: StreamScapes; the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group; and together with Karin Dubsky, coordinator of Coastwatch Ireland, the proposed project culminates in an installation and activated artivism space at IMMA Earth Rising Festival 2025.
Our project centres on a silent extinction currently happening in Irish waters; the ongoing effect of unregulated pair trawling for sprat in sensitive ecological inshore areas. As a prolific plankton feeding forage fish, sprat (Sprattus sprattus) inhabit the upper layer of the seas where plankton is most abundant, and are a vital link in our ocean ecology. Sprats provide a crucial food supply by converting plankton into protein for almost every fish species in our waters, as well as oceanic birds, cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) seals, breeding seabirds including puffins, kittiwakes and razorbills. Partly due to fishing quota legislation there has recently been intense targeting of sprats around Ireland’s coast, which has brought them from huge abundance to near extinction. Fishing with huge fine-mesh nets during their breeding season, when they congregate in inshore waters, wipes out complete generations at a time. The effect of the sprat extinction is devastating and far reaching. The sprats’ disappearance is leading to humpback whale migration pattern shifts and a huge loss of marine life.
Established in 2022, Seabed Sanctuary is a not-for-profit collective of artists, scientists, environmentalists and citizens concerned about biodiversity loss in our inland waters. Under the guidance of a panel, including a project manager, curator, and filmmaker, an internal open call for the IMMA Earth Rising Festival was sent out to the Seabed Sanctuary artists. A careful selection of five proposals has been aligned for a potent programme of community workshops and actions, designed at delivering a series of inter-generational events to raise awareness, and to spark appropriate response to the crisis happening along our shorelines. https://seabedsanctuary.org
Focusing on the intricate networks of multi-species relations, in material work spaces, and in conceptual exploration, a range of disciplines will be employed to re-invent and re-imagine ways of communing with nature and the marine environment. Eco-acoustic recordings, moveable installations, photography, films, tactile work, voice and crafting workshops with school groups, along with printed resources, talks and maker spaces will culminate in an activated working space at Earth Rising. This installation will include a multitudinous shoal of handmade sprats, co-created by artists working with communities, accompanied by a soundscape of Inter-species bio-acoustic recordings. Pinhole photography and citizen science studies will inform the space, with workshops on knotwork, participatory talks, and an exploratory tiny sea and beach combing museum. These inter-related and diverse offerings aim to spark conversations around complexity, to initiate change and to stimulate multi-species kinship.
Collaboration Plan
This initiative will collaborate with key marine conservation organisations, including the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group, (IWDG), and StreamScapes. IWDG’s flagship research vessel, the Celtic Mist, will serve as a floating physical platform for community engagement, offering workshops on cetacean conservation and hands-on creative sessions that highlight the interdependence of marine species. IWDG is responsible for training coastal communities in cetacean stranding rescues, data collection, ongoing educational work and legislative input around the marine environment. Film maker Rob Monaghan will sail onboard, collecting footage about IWDG’s work, to be published online and shared at public screenings, and artists will create community events in sync with the ship’s southwest itinerary from Kinsale to Bantry at the end of July; with video presentations on land of IWDG’s work, incorporating insights from marine biologists, scientific data and shared resources http://www.irishwhaleanddolphingroup.org
In parallel, StreamScapes will bring its expertise in aquatic biodiversity education, facilitating workshops that bridge the gap between freshwater and marine conservation, illustrating how inland waterways contribute to the health of coastal ecosystems. Over the years, StreamScapes have engaged hundreds of schools and community groups, helping them explore and understand their local catchments through interactive projects and insightful publications. For this project they will co-facilitate events with young citizens and our artists to blend scientific awareness with creative expression. http://www.streamscapes.ie
In collaboration with these two organisations, a series of events will be initiated with West Cork coastal communities in a broad artivist movement during the summer. With the endorsement of these two organisations, known for scientific rigor and strong advocacy efforts, we aim to create a cohesive, collective initiative that engages a broad spectrum of community change makers presenting imaginative concepts, solutions and future based abundant possibilities for the Earth Rising Festival 2025. These events will culminate as an activated centerpiece to present at the Earth Rising Festival at IMMA, to highlight the silent extinction of a keystone species and to foster the preservation of delicate ecological systems. The team will be sharing this further with the public as our large moveable sprat shoal installation will move through Dublin to Leinster House before swimming to the IMMA Earth Rising Festival into an activated space full of wonder.
Roles and responsibilities For this project the Seabed Sanctuary Collective co-founder Chris Gaughran will be coordinating roll-out between organisations and artists. Co-founder Rob Monaghan, and artist Éidín Griffin will be coordinating locally, activating and documenting community and organisation activities. Educational and science roles include: 1) StreamScapes working alongside musicians Caz Jeffreys and Marcus Maeder for school environmental and science based field trips along river and shore, collecting eco-acoustic recordings, with a later associated choir workshop with Caz and Katrina O’Kane, to include StreamScapes as guests. 2) Artist Tom Campbell will be leading a making workshop at StreamScapes summer children’s camp. 3) The IWDG will facilitate their flagship Celtic Mist as a project vessel to engage the public for knot workshops with Helen Stone, and, depending on the light, educational screenings with an option for these on land to inspire and inform species workshops by Tom Campbell. 4) Rob Monaghan will sail onboard Celtic Mist for a day or two, filming its work at sea, later to be published and shared with IWDG. 5) Eithne Griffin will be bringing her travelling Tiny Sea & Beachcombing Museum to West Cork locations for some of these gatherings before bringing it to Dublin.
Community Engagement Plan
We are an island nation, the marine environment surrounds us, and it is in trouble. 40 percent of the total population in Ireland are living within 5km of this trouble, and in Cork city and county the number of people living within 5km of marine areas rises to over 60 percent. (Population Distribution – CSO – Central Statistics Office 2016) The project we are proposing for Imma Earth Rising Festival 2025 aims to embody Donna Haraway’s concept of ‘renewed generative flourishing’, and to extend invitations to human communities along the coastal reach from Kinsale to Glengarriff, in creating a massive, moveable and multitudinous shoal of hand-crafted sprat, in a series of maker events throughout the summer of 2025. To draw attention to our cause and to inspire change, it is imperative to render these small creatures visible. ‘Becoming with’ the plight of all generations of multi marine species in the food web our aim is to construct a striking visual installation hand-in-hand with our coastal land communities, to galvanise support, response-ability, and action to rescue the sprat communities from impending extinction.
The planned community events are tailored to provide multi-generational public access, to share knowledge and skills and promote artivism to spark tangible change around marine practice along our coastline. These events, supported by photography exhibitions and talks, will include knotwork, storytelling, and screenings. They will be informative, vitalizing gatherings to share stories, craft creatures and communicate about this unregulated species extinction happening right now along our coastline. With this we aim to stimulate imaginative spaces, fostering contemplation on ‘What If?’ and ‘Maybe We Could?’
As the window to save the sprats from extinction is closing, our dedication to their cause is gaining urgency as we pledge allegiance to the vulnerable and voiceless. Aligned with the giant activated shoal of sprats we have West Cork musicians sharing knowledge and skills through bio-acoustics walks along the river and shoreline, pooling knowledge with local environmentalists. With the eco-acoustic recordings there will be opportunities for choir participants to mesh voices through studio production, to be in solidarity with all our unseen neighbours that we can discern through these eco-acoustic research walks. This will be a gesture, in Haraway’s words, of making kin with all the unseen critters and making kin lends itself to caring and bonding.
The majority of the planned community events are tailored to provide multi-generational public access, to share knowledge and skills and promote artivism, sparking tangible change around marine practice along our coastline.
We aim to engage groups of 10 or more people at a time in 40 hours of maker sessions, 30 hours of sound workshops including community choir singing, and then engaging with a further 3000 people at summer events such as the Ballydehob Jazz Festival and the Cape Clear Story Telling Festival in West Cork. Through the IWDG flagship vessel interactions and publicity process we aim to engage 500 people. We will publish events and our mission in local newspapers, on radio and on social media. Through this, we aim to share our work with over 15,000 people.
Manifestation Plan
During this age of disjointed acceleration and divisive politics, or as described by Haraway, ‘a time of dithering’, Seabed Sanctuary Collective was initially formed in 2022. The long-term goal is to create an underwater sculpture garden to be a sanctuary for marine life, providing habitats for reef biodiversity, and multi species flourishing. The public engagement this summer is also about supporting our mission to create the physical sanctuary where diverse multi-species can thrive in a safe haven. This Earth Rising project enables us to share these future plans, encouraging others to step forward and weave more of what Maria Puig de La Bellacasa calls ‘a thick mesh of relational obligation’.
For a magical glimpse into our long-term project in West Cork please click on this link. https://youtu.be/eO8X4OinR8w
Work cannot begin on the seabed without a licence, our full application was submitted and accepted in April/May 2023. It is currently with MARA. It includes ecology surveys, marine engineer reports, and sculpture designs by twenty-seven artists. This document and associated vision has inspired this year’s proposal to the Earth Rising Festival. https://www.maritimeregulator.ie/applications/mul240045/
The timing of the Earth Rising Festival coincides a few short weeks before the sprats spawning season begins and is an ideal time to highlight their plight publicly, inviting politicians, activists and legislators to connect and share community and scientific driven solutions for this current extinction. The creation of an Activated Sanctuary Space at IMMA will embrace ‘Staying with the Trouble’ by addressing and integrating all of the concepts of ‘Everything is Connected’, ‘Imagine New Futures’, and ‘Working Together’ ‘Becoming With’ through a fusion of on-site community engagements. Our goal is to curate a dynamic, inter-generational space at the Earth Rising Festival that reflects key elements of the proposed sanctuary site in West Cork.
Within our Earth Rising Sanctuary, we will be inviting visitors to join us in a spatial imagining of the underwater site. Incorporating a demarcated representation of the future sanctuary, there will be an activated space at Imma, mimicking the shape of the proposed site, with quirky edges, not to scale and vastly smaller than the actual site. If outside, biodegradable paint on the grass or ground could be used to define it, with bannered flags symbolizing edges and entrances. It has potential too to be inside if the weather is not great. Defining the space in advance cannot be subject to exactness, as it is dependent on IMMA’s curatorial team and the weather. Inside flowing into outside would be good, and we are open to different permutations, working with IMMA curators to define the area. Our vision is for an area about 120sq m overall. This will be a vital learning space for habitat study and wonder. It will be a space to enjoy, surrounding and containing visitors like the future underwater site will surround a multi-species wild area with safe habitats. There will be ongoing installations. Eithne Griffin’s hands-on Tiny Sea Museum is a small area of about 4sq m, full of interest, stimulating curiosity, conversation and connection; it is a good focal point for people to gather and share ideas. It consists of a cabinet and boxes alongside it, flexible to be outside or inside, and packed full with Eithne’s marine collection over many years. The auricular environment throughout our area will be immersive based on the summer eco-acoustic workshops in West Cork, and their production, through various interpretations in a series of speakers each reflecting subtle changes in the soundscape as folk explore the areas.
Inside can incorporate a contemplative area for screenings and talks from our environmental partners, Karin Dubsky, IWDG and Streamscapes; while another area, maybe outside, might include workshops with movement and play, roleplay, becoming fish how do we feel if ….
The shoal will be a definitive area, and also can be sited under the sky if weather permits, or perfect too inside under a roof.
This year at IMMA visitors can explore creative techniques using traditional knot-making skills and revel in tactile maker spaces. With dedicated environmental artivists and envoys on site the space will be alive with possibility and humming with diversity. This Earth Rising Sanctuary is a refuge fostering connection and sharing revelatory concepts focused on developing kinship within ecological systems. It cultivates nurturing immersive spaces for regenerative climate resilience. Reflecting the Seabed Sanctuary ethos of inspirational and complementary interfaces between art and science, this is low-threshold cooperation aimed at developing new perspectives on being and feeling.
The programme for the Earth Rising Sanctuary includes: the opening of the Activated Space and the Shoal installation; bio-acoustic immersive walk, composed by Marcus Maeder, Caz Jeffreys and Katrina O’Kane; screenings with Rob Monaghan, IWDG and StreamScapes; sprat-making sessions with Tom Campbell, Rosita Kingston and Eidin Griffin; Tying the Knot, a marriage of land and sea, and traditional techniques with Helen Stone; the Tiny Sea Museum with Eithne Griffin and Karin Dubsky; pinhole photography from Nuala Mahon; citizen research photography, Marine Biodiversity of West Cork, by Julia Cooper; and participatory workshops with Karin Dubsky, bringing the disaster happening all around our shores into a perspective to be understood, and to inspire folk to a sense of response-ability.
Budget
2 x days filming on board Celtic Mist (one volunteer artist) 200.00
2 x days pin-hole photography on site (one volunteer artist) 200.00
2x knotmaking workshops (one volunteer artist) 100.00
5 x acoustic & community workshops, recording, editing and production (3 artists) 2000.00
40 hours sprat workshops (4 artists) 2000.00
Materials, travel & co-ordination of shoal (3 artists) 2000.00
1x photography day plus printing (one volunteer artist) 440.00
7 Artists @ Earthrising Festival @125 daily each ( Including travel ) 2625.00
2 Volunteer’s travel costs to Dublin 100.00
2 volunteers’ subsistence 3 days Dublin 270.00
Petty cash 65.00
Total €10,000.00
Timeline:
April
19 April 2025 – Sprat community workshops in Kinsale and surrounds
26 & 27 April 2025 – Sprat and knotwork community workshops Ballydehob & Sherkin Island
May
First Sprat shoal swims in the parade at the Ballydehob Jazz Festival
Environmental/Science Workshops & Soundwalks / Caz Jeffreys and Marcus Maeder with StreamScapes: bioacoustic field trips pooling ecological knowledge
Sprat community workshop Baltimore
Sprat community workshop Glengarriff
Music Realisation/Composition Time creating eco-acoustic backing tracks
2 x Student Music Workshops. Together with the groups, vocal sections and lyrics created. Caz and Katrina
June
Choir and singing workshops with StreamScapes invited as guests
2 x Sprat workshops
July
Pinhole photography sessions and acoustic soundscape creation
Compiling & collating the music collection into looping soundscape for exhibition
Rob Monaghan filming onboard Celtic Mist
Celtic Mist sails from Kinsale to Bantry with Sprat Shoal onboard
Tom Campbell leads Species workshop at StreamScapes children’s summer camp
2 x sprat workshops Kinsale and Cork City
August
Onboard workshop on Celtic Mist with Eidin Griffin
Film showing about IWDG in Bantry,
Knot workshop Helen Stone,
3 x Species workshops Tom Campbell
Eithne Griffin & Tiny Sea & Beach combing Museum in Bantry
Sprat workshop Bantry
September
Sprat Shoal visits Cape Clear for the Storytelling Festival before making its way to Dublin
Sprat Shoal visits Leinster House
Activated Earth Rising Sanctuary Space with Sprat Shoal installed and Artivist Space created.
Artist/Group Background
IWDG The Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (established in 1990) is one of the most influential and successful marine NGOs in Ireland and is responsible for training coastal communities in cetacean stranding rescues, data collection, ongoing educational work and legislative input around the marine environment.
StreamScapes has been at the forefront of aquatic and biodiversity education for schools and communities across Ireland since 1989. Over the years, they have engaged hundreds of schools and community groups, helping them explore and understand their local catchments through interactive projects and insightful publications. Their work continues to inspire a deeper connection with Ireland’s natural heritage and encourage environmental stewardship for future generations.
Chris Gaughran holds an MA in Art and Process from MTU Crawford College. She is co-founder and coordinator of Seabed Sanctuary Collective. Her CV includes: 2015 MOOC ‘Managing the Arts’ Goethe Institute; Marketing for cultural organisations; and 2016 MOOC ‘Managing the Arts’ Cultural Organisations in Transition
Karin Dubsky is a marine ecologist and activist campaigner, coordinator and co-founder of Coastwatch Europe, an environmental NGO and a member of the European Environmental Bureau. Karin campaigns regularly on environmental issues, especially affecting water quality, wetlands, dunes and beaches. Dubsky co-designed the Blue Flag for Beaches award programme, co-founded the Irish Clean Air Group, which successfully lobbied for the introduction of smokeless fuel in Ireland, and set up an international volunteer eco-audit of the coast which spread to 23 countries. Data from the Coastwatch survey were used to lobby for a plastic bag tax in Ireland, which, when introduced, was the first in Europe. She is a strong advocate for inclusive citizen science.
Tom Campbell is a prolific multidisciplinary Cork based artist experienced in facilitation of papier mâché workshops for over 20 years. He has created large scale community installations including the renowned ‘ Dog Project’ 6 times actively engaging over 1000 people. He has worked across Europe, including France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands and has recently been working in the Philippines. He is a passionate about making community art activities accessible. www.tomcampbellart.com
Caz Jeffreys An experienced choir leader and community musician based in Ballydehob, she holds an MA in Community Music from the University of Limerick. A strong collaborator and networker she works with local artists, organisations, schools and community groups.www.cazjeffreys.com
Marcus Maeder is an artist, researcher and composer of electronic music. As an author he has written on topics in the fields of sound art, acoustic ecology, artistic research and digital media. A visiting scientist at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Landscape and Snow Research SWL, he holds a position as a Humboldt Research Fellow at Freie Universität Berlin and is researcher and lecturer at the Zurich University of Arts ZHdK. Funded by Zurich University, his eco-acoustic monitoring system is installed on the Seabed Sanctuary site continually recording the dynamics and development of local biodiversity; interactions between air, land, river and sea; and data collection on a changing climate. www.marcusmaeder.ch
Katrina O’Kane studied music technology in Bangor. She performed and taught DJing and music production in the North of Ireland to youth groups as well as assisting at sound healing events. In 2023 she set up a concert series in Ahakista called ‘Kin’ at Arundels by the pier. She writes and performs electric guitar, loop pedal, effects and percussion weaving intricate tapestries of sound and rhythm with melodic haunting vocals. Instagram @katrina.o.kane
Eithne Griffin BA Hons Visual Arts IADT, an experienced mixed media artist and community facilitator. Founder member of Ormond Studio and former director of IWDG she is active conservationist and citizen scientist. As the creator of the Tiny Sea & Beach Combing Museum in 2024 she now shares sharing her innate curiosity and love of the sea through her wonderful findings.
Rosita Kingston West Cork based artist coming from a marine background and experienced creative facilitator. She mostly uses paper and cardboard resources and makes remarkable installations from the most ordinary of materials. The founder of the Kinsale Halloween parade she has been involved in local and community activism co-creating magic around parades and festive events for decades.
Helen Stone is an artist, business woman, environmental and social activist. A successful artist for 15 years, she is currently studying a BA in Visual Arts on Sherkin Island and is a winner of the Ludgate Hub mural competition 2024. Her interests particularly lie in biodiversity of both land and sea.
Nuala Mahon holds an MSc in Chemistry from University College Dublin, and a BA (hons) in Photography from the University for the Creative Arts in the UK. Living on Sherkin Island in West Cork her professional background in chemistry merges seamlessly with passion for visual art, informing her creative work. Nuala strives to work sustainably by creating her own cameras and using locally sourced materials to develop her projects. Her work was shortlisted for Belfast Photo Festival in 2022; it was also included in a group project in Open Eye Gallery for Climate Change Lab 2022.
Julia Cooper is a visual artist specialising in photography and passionate about citizen science, she strives to use the medium of photography to highlight the fascinating biodiversity of our shores and its need of protection. Working with Coastwatch for the past eight years, she has used her photography to educate and inspire people around Ireland to engage in citizen science as a positive action to our biodiversity crisis.
Rob Monaghan visual artist, has a BA(Hons) degree in visual art, from DTU Sherkin Island, and has exhibited widely in Ireland and internationally. He is co-founder of Seabed Sanctuary Collective and currently studies Art Therapy at MTU Crawford College.
Eidin Griffin interdisciplinary artist embracing participatory projects rooted in solidarity for multispecies relationships. From re-imagining materials, community activism, and street celebrations to theatre, sailing and landcare, she navigates climate resilient scenarios with a sense of adventure and audaciousness. Winner of a CARO climate award at Sculpture in Context 2023 she is currently enrolled in a MA Arts & Engagement at MTU. www.rebelseed.ie
Julia Cooper Citizen Science, Nuala Mahon Pinhole photography, and Tom Campbell with his fish