The original project & its impact
Introducing radical ocean futures...A Collaborative #ARTSCIENCE initiative & EXPERIMENTAL FUTURING PROJECT.
Welcome intrepid explorer of the future oceans....
This project is founded on the belief that sometimes science fiction might succeed where scientific papers fall short. It blends art and science and merges scientific fact with creative speculation. The heart of the project is four short 'Radical Ocean Futures.' These are scientifically grounded narratives of potential future oceans. Each narrative is supported by both a visual and a musical interpretation to allow multiple entry points and stimulate the imagination. The purpose of this project is to explore tools that can help us to think creatively and imaginatively about our future oceans and assess how unexpected changes, along with human responses to those changes, may play out in a complex world that is, at its heart, surprising.
This project was financed through a science communications grant from The Swedish Research Council Formas and has had significant impact. The project has been featured in WIRED, a Nature editorial, an article in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and was chosen as the Official artwork by the government of Sweden for the Inaugural UN Ocean Conference and displayed in the lobby of the General Assembly building at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.
The Radical Ocean Futures project has also been featured in a number of international Art Exhibitions. This includes ‘Ocean Dwellers: Art, Science and Science Fiction’ at the Nordic Embassies in Berlin and ‘Critical Tide’ at the Helsinki Design Museum. The Project featured in the London Science Museum - Science Fiction: Voyage to the Edge of Imagination Exhibition. This exhibition will tour science Museums globally four five to seven years now that it closed its successful extended run in August 2023.
The project has also featured on a number of podcasts including in an episode of one of Sweden’s most popular podcasts ‘P3 Dystopia’ in an episode about the future Ocean entitled; ‘När havet dör’
The project has been featured as part of a special issue of Vector, the key journal of the British Science Fiction Association.
Radical Ocean Futures has also been featured as an immersive audio-visual experience during the 2024 Baltic Sea Festival at the Swedish Technology Museum. In 2025 and 2026, it will be possible to experience a standalone version at Tekniska Museet on a selected number of occasions.
Finally, the Radical Ocean Futures stories are the foundation for an in-development Science Fiction Drama Series provisionally titled: Ocean Rising. Please contact us if you would like more information about the ongoing development process.
DRAWING ATTENTION TO RELATED PROJECTS
As well as the Radical Ocean Futures Project, on this website you will find other examples of likeminded scientific collaborations around different dimensions of the future ocean including the Fisheries Conflict Futures project led by Jessica Spijkers and work on Imagination beyond National Jurisdiction led by Hannah Marlen Lübker & Laura Pereira. A recently added project focuses on Post-growth Imaginaries for the High Seas led by Tilde Krusberg. Further relevant scientific work will be added over time to the website to showcase the different science + storytelling approaches to the future of the ocean.
“Earth’s oceans are having a rough time right now. They’re oily, hot, acidic, full of dead fish—and their levels are rising. But even though these things are true, it can be hard to grok (or muster up the will to care about) the oceans’ subtle changes over decades. Every time you go to the beach, everything’s still as blue and salty and vast as it ever was. But these changes directly impact human life (just ask the Marshall Islands). So to make the ocean’s plight more relatable, a Swedish sustainability group is putting out a message that will hit you where it counts: right in the nerd.”
“Some of the scenarios painted — in both the fictional tales of the future ocean and the high-emissions scenarios of climate modellers — are something that society, scientists included, should be desperate to avoid. To do so, data and evidence remain the priority. But in a world where both are so easily trumped by a seductive (and false) counter-narrative, perhaps more researchers should also learn to tell tales as they look ahead.”