Mariele Neudecker-ACE award for deep sea project

Mariele Neudecker has just been awarded an Arts Council of England research grant for her project to collaborate with Dr Alex Rogers, a leading world marine biologist  at Oxford University to create an artwork around Rogers research into deep sea exploration which contains some of the world’s unknown ecosystems.

Dr Rogers is leading an international trip to the Indian Ocean in November 2011 to find deep water trenches. Rogers is investigating the marine life that live 1000′s of metres below the surface where hot sulphuric water shoots up through deep sea chimneys into the deep sea heated by the earth’s crust, in complete darkness. It is a place where only the hardiest of plants and animals can survive and we still have very little information about what is there. Once the trench is found, which can take weeks, they will send an unmanned submersible with cameras and robotic arms to take specimens.

Neudecker’s artwork engages with unknowable murky spaces and landscapes often exploring the subconscious. She has been in discussions with Roger’s about our perceptions of the deep sea and how he feels as a scientist researching such an unexplored area, with comparisons to outer space in terms of our knowledge and understanding. Neudecker has spoken to Roger’s about the visual recordings the team will make and she will have access to video footage after their return.