Transformative Currents: Art and Action in the Pacific Ocean

Maja Godlewska and Marek Ranis, Mare Liberum, Reimagined (2024)

Transformative Currents: Art and Action in the Pacific Ocean examines the historical causes and ongoing effects of the cultural and environmental devastation of the Pacific Ocean and harnesses art’s potential to enact positive ecological change, both planetary and local.

Covering nearly one-third of the earth’s surface, the Pacific Ocean is home to thousands of interconnected peoples, species, and ecosystems—all under threat from climate change, industrial pollution, and overfishing. Works in diverse media by 21 contemporary artists/collaborative teams are organized around the theme of ocean currents, which traverse the Pacific and suggest fluidity, interconnectivity, and collective responsibility. Each project addresses a specific issue affecting the oceanic environment; together, they highlight the interdependency of resources and the impact of local actions on global problems.

Crystal Cove Conservancy will present the multimedia installation Mare Liberum, Reimagined (2024) by artists Maja Godlewska and Marek Ranis. Located in historic Cottage #46 at Crystal Cove State Park, the work combines physical, suspended elements and virtual reality components. Viewers explore the immersive installation by navigating a kelp forest maze of suspended paintings on mesh screen panels, alluding to the tangled verticality of a kelp grove. Among the paintings hang several VR headsets presenting a series of films. The installation extends to the cottage’s exterior porch, offering a view of the Pacific.

At a time when the health of the Pacific Ocean is in a fragile and volatile state, Transformative Currents unites art, science, and Indigenous knowledge systems to raise awareness and improve coastal conditions. In addition to the primary exhibition at Oceanside Museum of Art in Oceanside, Crystal Cove Conservancy is one of two satellite presentations of Transformative Currents alongside the Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA) in Costa Mesa.

Curated by Cassandra Coblentz with assistant curators Aaron Katzeman and Ziying Duan.

Maja Godlewska 
Born 1965, Wroclaw, Poland. Lives and works Charlotte, North Carolina, on the traditional ancestral and unceded territory of the Catawba, Cheraw, Sugeree, Wateree, and Waxhaw Peoples. 

Marek Ranis 
Born 1968, Wroclaw, Poland. Lives and works Charlotte, North Carolina, on the traditional ancestral and unceded territory of the Catawba, Cheraw, Sugeree, Wateree, and Waxhaw Peoples. 

Artists Maja Godlewska and Marek Ranis work independently and collaboratively, bringing their diverse expertise and unique sensibilities to pressing environmental issues. Godlewska’s recent research interests include the spectacle of global tourism, the tourist gaze, the Instagrammable sublime, visual consumption of nature, and landscape phenomenology. Ranis explores social, political, and anthropological aspects of phenomena such as climate change through sculpture, installation, painting, photography, and video.