Mariele Neudecker- deep sea project

Mariele Neudecker is collaborating 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 led an international trip to the Indian Ocean in November 2011 to find deep water trenches. He 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.

Roger’s set up IPSO, the International Programme on the State of the Ocean. Currently, the Ocean is in a critical state of health. If it continues to decline, it will reach a point where it can no longer function effectively and our planet will be unable to sustain the ecosystems that support humankind.

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 is interested in Roger’s expedition team’s recordings and in 2012 will spend time in their laboratory developing ideas for new works.

See Deep Water seamount expedition blog.