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The transdisciplinary research project Whose Ocean? has received a €33,500 euro grant from the . This national cultural fund finances innovative design projects by makers and cultural institutions in the creative industry. The funding was granted to , in partnership with Utrecht University and . "This grant allows us to work with three designers to shape our research and the Assembly," says Erik van Sebille, leader of this research project. The Assembly is a key product of this project, where various stakeholders will engage in a discussion about the question: Whose Ocean?

Whose Ocean?

The ocean is crucial to life and climate, but its voice is barely heard in (international) law and policy decisions. While the UN explicitly speaks about ‘our ocean’, it is completely unclear who the ‘our’ refers to. Does the ocean belong to humanity? To states? Does the ocean belong to itself, or the organisms that live in it? As a result, it is unclear who may lay claim to the oceans and who may represent the oceans in international politics and law. The oceans are under pressure from global warming and from companies and states that (wish to) develop activities harmful to the oceans, such as fishing, energy generation and deep-sea mining.

The Whose Ocean team is researching this question with a team of scientists from various disciplines. In addition to the team of scientists, the and are curating a team of artists and designers. Thijs Middeldorp, director of Embassy of the North Sea: “Many of the scientific questions in the Whose Ocean program are also about representation in the sense of imagining. That’s why we’re very happy that three designers will collaborate in the research and design of the Assembly: costume designer Carly Everaert, Daan 't Sas who, as a visual artist, is also the pacesetter of the collective Building Conversation, and graphic designer Corine Datema. In addition to the designers and scholars, three artists will also participate in the research: Sheng-Wen Lo, Xandra van der Eijk and Müge Yilmaz. The works that result from their research will become part of the Assembly. The designers will work closely with the artists and scientists to shape the Assembly.”