Micro Macro

About

ARTIST STATEMENT:

For me, the attraction lay in the play between fantastic illustration and surreal pictorial art, and in approaching the boundaries between the illustration of facts and the completely freely associated abstraction.

THE NARRATIVE:

In the future, there will be maritime farm yards called ‘green oceans’. The communities live in harmony with the oceans and have established climate friendly businesses. Maritime agriculture is the interface between deep sea and terrestrial territory. It connects the ocean and land. 

In 2050 there will be floating algae fields, on one hand to clean the oceans and to support the de-acidification. On  the other hand, to vaccinate fish with specific enzymes to digest plastic in their bodies. The algae fields serve the reduction of CO2. They are recognized as the bamboo of oceans as they grow very fast.  Furthermore, the algae can be used as food for people and animals especially for sustainable maritime agriculture. Algae is known as a plastic substitute and is used in medicine, construction materials and clothing. 

The vision is an agricultural cooperative between fish and humans where algae fields are protected areas to serve the marine species. Lots of new innovations are made in the circular aquaponic field. 

Algae artists help to get a better understanding for these new farm yards in the oceans. They show the interdependence between micro cosmos and the macro cosmos.

ABOUT THE PROJECT:

So far in 2022, the Ocean Future Lab project has held 5 online workshops as well as 4 face-to-face workshops at the German Maritime Museum in Bremerhaven, the Ozeaneum – the German Maritime Museum in Stralsund, the Futurium Berlin and the Berlin International University Berlin.

In the workshops, utopian narratives on the question “How do we want to live with the oceans?” were developed in a transdisciplinary and co-creative way. Some of these narratives have been visualized by participating artists. Now we want to present these results to you. They will be presented in exhibitions of the participating museums, on the internet and social media to broaden the dialogue with a larger audience. 

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Jan Schneider graduated as a communication designer and scenographer, and works as a concept artist, 3D modeler (video games) and set designer for animation and live action films in Berlin. From 2009-2014 he was an artistic assistant in the scenography department at HFF Konrad Wolf Potsdam. Since 2014 he has been a lecturer in “Digital Image” at the Film University Babelsberg.