Immerse yourself in underwater ecosystems and narratives at upcoming MESSAGE event

MESSAGE, the Marine & Energy Social Sciences & Humanities Interdisciplinary Research Group based at UCD, invites you to a free event entitled Underwater Worlds: Art, Science and the Submerged featuring London-based artist Sonia Levy.

Join Sonia for a lecture and a viewing of her mesmerising aquatic video-art followed by a discussion by an interdisciplinary panel of artists and researchers who have all, in their own way, worked on visualising submerged ecosystems and narratives. 

This panel will be focused on the theme Visualising the Invisible and invites the audience and panelists to question the implications of producing underwater imagery.

Event details

• Wednesday 3 December
• 10.00-14.00
• Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland (RSAI), 63 Merrion Square South, D02 X338
• (opens in a new window)Registration

About the speakers

Artist Sonia Levy 
Sonia Levy's inquiry-led filmmaking practice explores submerged ecologies and the entanglements of power, knowledge, and environmental transformations. Her work, marked by site-specific and interdisciplinary inquiries, delves into the implications of Western expansionist and extractive logics, exploring how these forces manifest in the transformation and governance of hydrosocial worlds. Her practice aims to probe the thresholds that have shaped and influenced the conditions necessary for life to flourish.

Panellists

Dr Ruth Leeney, Teaching Fellow at UCD School of Biology and Environmental Science
Ruth is an interdisciplinary biologist and social scientist whose research focuses on the impacts of fisheries on chondrichthyans (sharks, skates and rays), and the socio-economic and cultural importance of marine fauna for coastal communities. She has used BRUVs (baited remote underwater video systems) to help identify populations of endangered shark species and inform their conservation, and has worked with artists to develop educational materials about marine life for coastal communities.

Dr Dominic Bush, Post-Doctoral Fellow at UCC's Earth and Ocean Lab
Dominic has a background in Anthropology and Coastal Resource Management. His research has focused on the documentation and preservation of underwater cultural heritage, primarily from the Second World War and the link between microbial activity and corrosion of submerged aircraft wrecks off the coast of Hawaii. He currently works on the project the Instability and Pollution Potential Mapping of Irish Shipwreck Sites for a National Risk Assessment Database (I-PoINt).

Alan James Burns, Dublin-based artist
Alan produces collaborative, interactive, socially engaged and site-specific exhibitions. The focal points of their artistic and curatorial practice are disability, climate change and the human mind. In 2024, Alan produced the project titled Foram which presents research from an artistic residency on board the Celtic Explorer research cruise CE23011. Foram explores how all things, even what can appear as the most isolated and marginalised elements of our world, play a crucial role in protecting our planet.