Becoming Ocean Exhibition

Opening Wednesday, May 7, 2025 – 7:00 PM

From May 8 to August 24, 2025, Villa Arson, TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary and Tara Ocean Foundation present Becoming Ocean: a social conversation about the Ocean, a major exhibition exploring the main challenges facing the Ocean in a choral way. More than 20 international artists are taking part in the exhibition, to be held at the Villa Arson, through critical and documentary approaches as well as more sensory, poetic or speculative expressions.

The exhibition is part of the program for the Nice Biennial of Arts and the Ocean, organized by the City of Nice as part of the United Nations Conference on the Oceans (UNOC3) to be held in Nice from June 9 to 13, 2025.

Artists

Allora & Calzadilla, Antoine Bertin, Samuel Bollendorff, Seba Calfuqueo, Stephanie Comilang, Anne Duk Hee Jordan, Simone Fattal, Nicolas Floc’h, Max Hooper Schneider, Kapwani Kiwanga, Sonia Levy, Armin Linke, Courtney Desiree Morris, Asunción Molinos Gordo, Ingo Niermann, Diana Policarpo, Christian Sardet et les Macronautes, Robertina Šebjanič, Allan Sekula, Janaina Tschäpe, Laure Winants, Susanne M. Winterling.

Exhibition

Becoming Ocean reflects on our understanding and ignorance of the Ocean and its future. It is a manifestation of the values and methods shared by the participant institutions to bring from the art perspective and through its uncountable forms, an open social conversation about the ocean challenges that we all face as a planet and our opportunity to rethink our connection with the Ocean and act differently for its preservation.

For the past few decades, art and artists have been actively working to foster an understanding of climate change from the perspective of Nature. Art has played (and still plays) a crucial role in translating abstract and complex planetary phenomena, as well as large-scale systemic global changes, into narrative imagery, first-person storytelling, and Indigenous perspectives, helping us to name and experience these challenges. Artists have stepped beyond their studios and traditional workspaces to collaborate with experts, policymakers, and scientists, forging a shared horizon where we can strive for a genuine encounter with nature and its interests. Artists—coming from diverse backgrounds and contexts—have been inventing exercises and gestures that address the rupture caused by colonial and capitalist greed, paving the way for the birth of a new history. A history defined by better choices and a deeper connection to the mythical dimensions of the ocean, whose echoes reach our present from ancient times. The purpose of Becoming Ocean is to immerse ourselves humbly in these meaningful approaches.

Becoming Ocean will feature artworks from the TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Collection and from the Tara Ocean Foundation’s artists-in-residence program as well as a collaboration of the Schmidt Ocean Institute.

Curators

Hélène Guenin, Co-curator – Nice Biennal of Arts and the Ocean
Chus Martínez, Associate Curator – TBA21 Thyssen- Bornemisza Art Contemporary
Sébastien Ruiz, General Secretary –Tara Ocean Foundation
Marie-Ann Yemsi, Director – Villa Arson art center

Practical information

From May 8th to August 24th 2025

Opening hours: open to the public every day except Tuesday, from 2pm to 6pm (2pm to 7pm in July and August).

Admission is free and no reservation is required.

Address: Villa Arson, 20 avenue Stephen Liégeard, 06100 Nice

Outside areas (gardens and terraces) and exhibition rooms are largely accessible to people with reduced mobility.

Partners

An exhibition co-produced by

With the collaboration of

As part of

In media partnership with