Art Explora allows children to explore the sounds of the ocean

On Saturday, 20 April an ocean literacy workshop for children was held on board the Art Explora Sailing Yacht while it was moored in Venice.

The workshop was developed around the artworks present on board, including “A Sound Journey through the Mediterranean” by IRCAM, an immersive soundscape experience that includes human and non-human recordings collected around the Mediterranean Sea.

Together with the children we reflected on these sounds of the marine world above water: sounds familiar to the majority of people. We listened to the soundscape with our eyes closed and drew what we could hear. Then we moved to the underwater world, trying to understand how sound propagates in a different way underwater, be it from anthropogenic or natural sources. We reproduced different underwater sounds from the CNR-ISMAR archive and tried to identify them: an activity the children really enjoyed!

Finally, Valentine Duval from Art Explora guided us in our exploration of the two artworks present on the boat. We first saw “Love Difference – Mar Mediterraneo” by Michelangelo Pistoletto, then we encountered the piece “Mass Struggle” by artist Akram Zaatar. The former is composed of a mirrored table, and the latter a carpet made with rubberized floor. Both pieces are shaped like the Mediterranean Sea, and they become an embodiment of it. This peculiarity allowed the children to engage with the pieces using our senses: we could sit at the table, touch it, look at our reflection in it, and jump, run on it, or lie on the carpet. This interactive thematic experience was a wat to connect with the Mediterranean Sea with our bodies, through the artworks present on the catamaran.

Photos by Martina Barbon © Art Explora, 2024.