Program: Session V
Session V
Wed. 30 September
15:30–17:00
Bryggan (Göran, 2nd floor)
Chair: TBA
Eduardo Abrantes & Laura Hellsten (Åbo Akademi University)
Knowledge at Sea – A Case-Study for Transdisciplinary Community Practices for Sustainability
This presentation offers a case study from “Knowledge at Sea – Transdisciplinary Community Practices for Sustainability”, a facilitated study trip across the North Atlantic and in the Icelandic Westfjords that brings together artists, researchers, students, and cultural workers around questions of oceanic sustainability and blue humanities. Rather than treating “transdisciplinarity” as a mere gathering of different expertises, the project is designed so that transdisciplinary methodologies—facilitation, shared inquiry, and situated collaboration—form the core structure of the collective’s work.
Drawing on field notes, participatory observation, and documentation from the 2026 journey, we examine what happens when a blue humanities–driven research activity is intentionally choreographed as a transversal learning environment. This includes: experimental reading practices at sea (using Olaus Magnus’ “Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus”), co-created workshops on biodiversity and marine ecologies (including a prototype biodiversity board game), and encounters with local cultural actors in the Westfjords. We argue that when facilitation is foregrounded, transdisciplinarity shifts from being an add-on to becoming an infrastructural condition that redistributes authority, opens space for non-academic and more-than-human knowledges, and reconfigures how a culture and an environment defined by “land-sea” communal relationships appears as an object of study.
By situating this case within blue humanities debates on human–water relations, the presentation reflects on the practical, ethical, and affective implications of designing research as a collectively held, sea-borne process. It asks how such facilitated transdisciplinary constellations might contribute to more durable collaborations and to reimagining maritime knowledge beyond disciplinary and institutional shorelines.
Angela Iuliano (University of Naples)
Submerged Futures: Retro-Futurism and Dystopian Water-Scapes in Simon Stålenhag’s The Loop and Things from the Flood
This paper wishes to explore the intersection of Blue Humanities and Speculative Fiction through the narrative art of Simon Stålenhag, specifically focusing on the transition from the technological hybris of Tales from the Loop to the aquatic decay of Things from the Flood. By employing a retro-futuristic perspective, Stålenhag projects dangerous and uncanny technologies into the familiar, mundane setting of the Swedish 1980s and 90s, creating a “submerged wreck” of the future. Both texts can be read as a metaphor for the decay of Sweden, with a specific reference to the 1980s and 1990s—years in which, following the economic crisis, there was a series of neoliberal reforms and a restriction of welfare state privileges. Lake Mälaren, and its transformation within Stålenhag’s drawings and texts, serves as both a metaphor and a physical space for a transformation toward catastrophe.
Thomas Lennerfors (Uppsala University)
From Context to Cuteness: On the Representation of the Ocean and Animals in the Shipping Industry
This paper examines how the ocean and non-human animals are represented in the annual reports of contemporary shipping companies, situating these representations within broader gaps in maritime research. While modern shipping studies have largely overlooked ship–animal relationships, with only limited attention to cases such as Maersk’s communication following the Maersk Norwich incident, this study addresses the absence by analysing how shipping companies depict animals and marine environments in corporate discourse.
Drawing on Human–Animal Studies and Blue Humanities, the paper explores nearly four decades of annual reporting to identify recurring visual and textual patterns. The findings show that the ocean is predominantly framed as a backdrop, a demanding force, or a site of vulnerability. Animals appear infrequently and are typically aestheticized in simplified or “cute” forms. Both are thus instrumentalized to reinforce narratives of corporate competence, resilience, and quality, rather than presented as active participants in ecological relationships.
Temporal variations in representation align with corporate development and broader cultural trends, including increased public awareness of animal welfare and the rise of visual social media. However, even when animals appear in closer proximity to ships, they remain framed in ways that support corporate identity rather than ecological complexity.
Methodologically, the study demonstrates the value of reading for absence, visual metaphor, and subtle imagery in corporate archives, revealing the “silences” that shape industrial narratives. Overall, the analysis highlights a persistent tension in maritime communication: the ocean and its inhabitants are acknowledged only insofar as they serve human-centered, technical, and financial priorities, underscoring the need for more ecologically attuned approaches to maritime studies.
Heini Sorakivi & Heidi Vanhanen (The Forum Marinum Maritime Centre)
Our Sea: The Role of Maritime Museums in the Blue Humanities Network
In this presentation, we discuss the strengths museums can offer and the roles they can play in understanding the interactions between humans and the sea. Our findings are based on the “Our Sea” project conducted at the Forum Marinum Maritime Centre in 2025. The aim of the project was to develop a new collaborative operational model for museums to enhance ocean literacy among our audiences.
We will present the methods we developed to make the concept of “ocean literacy” more concrete and approachable. From the outset, rather than adding to the already vast body of information and research on the state of the Baltic Sea, we chose to approach the topic from a slightly different perspective. During the project, we organized several experimental workshops for a range of audiences, collaborators and other stakeholders working to protect the Baltic Sea.
In addition, we re-examined our collections to explore how they can be interpreted in new ways, highlighting the historical changes in interactions between humans and the sea. Our third goal was to shift the museum’s focus from viewing the sea primarily as a resource for commercial and military activities to considering how humans affect the sea and how the sea, in turn, affects us.
In this symposium, we would like to share the results—both our successes and the experiments that require further development. We also aim to find new collaborators to strengthen the museum’s role as a mediator of discussion and to make better use of our strengths in enhancing public understanding of the seas.