Blue Ecologies is a four-part seminar led by guest faculty Juan Pablo Pacheco Bejarano, exploring the ecosocial, technological, and historical dimensions of water. How does water shape thought, history, culture, and perception? Each edition engages this question through a different form of water—salty, sweet, frozen, and vapor—unfolding its material, speculative, and political possibilities.

The first seminar, salty, dives into maritime thinking and sensing. As the ocean faces increasing acidification, heat, noise, and extraction, it also receives renewed attention from scientific, artistic, critical, and corporate research. How do we tune into the messages carried by the waves amidst these pressures? How can we relate to the ocean as a subject, a living archive, and an agent of change?

From deep-sea infrastructures, interspecies communication, and shipping routes to coral regeneration, wet mythologies, and toxicity, we will explore how seawater mediates relationships between humans, more-than-humans, and histories of extraction. Drawing from blue humanities, hydrofeminism, oceanography, decoloniality, speculative fiction, and artistic practices, we will tune into the sea’s resonant frequencies, imagining alternative narratives on ecosocial justice and planetary survival. 

Challenging terrestrial perspectives, this seminar invites you to embrace the voluminous, humid churning of maritime lifeworlds—to dampen your senses and humidify your thoughts.

Session I 23 / 04 / 2025 Ocean webs: ships, cables and myth with Juan Pablo Pacheco Bejarano The construction of modernity, from European colonialism to the digital revolution, is intimately tied with ocean infrastructures and mythologies. How is the ocean an ecosocial space? What are these infrastructures and how are they contained, supported and challenged by the ocean’s lifeworlds? What can mythical thinking tell us about the future of maritime networks? Session II 30 / 04 / 2025 Sounding seas, from the abyss to coral reefs with Juan Pablo Pacheco Bejarano The ocean is shaped by sound, from sonar mapping technologies and industrial noise pollution to emerging acoustic strategies for ecological restoration. How does sound impact ocean ecosystems, from the deep sea to coastal reefs? Can listening practices inform new models of marine conservation? Session III 07 / 05 / 2025 Restoring oceanic kinships with Natasha Ginwala  This session delves into a wide-range of artistic projects and enduring research around Afrasian memory cultures, practices of orature and water-led study of maritime cosmopolitanism, hydro feminisms, coastal ecologies and development paradoxes in the Indian Ocean and Swahili Seas. Session IV 14 / 05 / 2025 How To Speak Whale and Should We Speak Whale? with Tom Mustill Technology changes what we know of the sea and its inhabitants, from scuba equipment to hydrophones to drones, citizen science to machine learning pattern-finding tools. Each brings a new lens, spurs new stories, gives new opportunities for connection, but they also have the capacity to mislead, present ethical problems and opportunities for new forms of power and biological disruption. Session V 21 / 05 / 2025 Sensing Internet Ecologies with Nicole Starosielski This talk will dive into the challenges of sensing the connections of internet infrastructure, from subsea cables to data centers, to their surrounding environments. How are these vast infrastructures imbricated with a changing climate and a heightened geopolitical environment? What modes of sensing, measurement, and exchange do we need? Session VI 28 / 05 / 2025 To island the world with Maureen Penjueli The Pacific Ocean is the largest (salty) ocean in the world—so vast it can fit all of the continents. Named as a ‘peaceful ocean’ it is anything but peaceful. Great powers have coveted it: it was once a proving ground for nuclear weapons; now a sacrifice zone for mineral resources and an ongoing theatre for defense strategic interest. In response to imperial aggression, an oceanic worldview emerged, a form of resistance to continental thinking. What can island thinking from the largest salty ocean continent teach the world?

Juan Pablo Pacheco Bejarano Juan Pablo Pacheco Bejarano is an artist, writer, and educator who seeks to amplify the healing powers of water. Through audiovisual and edible projects, texts and collaborative workshops, his work interweaves questions on ecology, technology, and spirituality. Juan Pablo has worked with the Institute for Postnatural Studies, Garage School, Espacio Odeón, and Plataforma Bogotá. He has taught at the Javeriana and Andes universities in Bogotá, at the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague and at Elisava Madrid. His work has been presented at the Reina Sofía Museum, Madrid (2024); Manifesta 15, Barcelona (2024); Hordaland Kunstsenter, Bergen (2024); Jan van Eyck academie, Maastricht (2023); La MaMa, New York (2023); Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Brussels (2022); ISEA, Barcelona (2022); Galería Santa Fe, Bogotá (2020); Transmediale, Berlin (2020); Ural Biennial, Yekaterinburg (2020); Museo Carrillo Gil, Mexico City (2019), among others.

Natasha Ginwala Natasha Ginwala is a curator, researcher and writer, co-curator, Sharjah Biennial 16 (2023-25), artistic director of Colomboscope, Sri Lanka since 2019 and was Associate Curator at Large for Gropius Bau, Berlin  through pivotal years (2018 – 2024). She also served as artistic director of the 13th Gwangju Biennale with Defne Ayas (2021). Ginwala has been part of curatorial teams of 8th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art (2014), Contour Biennale 8, documenta 14 (2017), Taipei Biennale 2012 and co-curated several international exhibitions including at e-flux, Sharjah Art Foundation, Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum für Gegenwart, ifa Gallery, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, L’ appartement 22, Muzeum Sztuki w Łodzi, MCA Chicago, 56th Venice Biennale, SAVVY Contemporary and Zeitz MOCAA. Ginwala is a widely published author with a focus on contemporary art, visual culture, and social justice.

Nicole Starosielski Nicole Starosielski, Professor of Film and Media at the University of California-Berkeley, conducts research on global internet and media distribution, communications infrastructures ranging from data centers to undersea cables, and media’s environmental and elemental dimensions. Starosielski is author or co-editor of over thirty articles and five books on media, infrastructure, and environments, including: The Undersea Network (2015), Media Hot and Cold (2021), Signal Traffic: Critical Studies of Media Infrastructure (2015), Sustainable Media: Critical Approaches to Media and Environment (2016), Assembly Codes: The Logistics of Media (2021), as well as co-editor of the “Elements” book series at Duke University Press. 

Tom Mustill Tom Mustill is biologist turned filmmaker and writer, his book How To Speak Whale examines anthropocentrism, conservation and cetaceans, and the search for language-like patterns in their communications, as well as looking at the changing interface of AI and the living world. He is also a filmmaker and has made more than 40 films, including many with David Attenborough and Greta Thunberg for the BBC Natural History Unit, Discovery Channel and others broadcasters, as well as virals, activist films and bioacoustic installations.

Maureen Penjueli  Maureen Penjueli was born on the island of Rotuma but spent most of her schooling life in Lautoka, Fiji. She undertook the Foundation in Science Programme at the University of the South Pacific and gained a Degree in Australian Environmental Science at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia. She considers herself a student of life. Penjueli is a dedicated activist, having pursued environmental, social and economic justice issues for over 20 years throughout the region. She is former Coordinator for the Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG), a leading regional NGO working on trade and economic justice issues.

Alaimo, Stacy. 2025. The Abyss Stares Back: Encounters with Deep-Sea Life. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Duarte, Carlos M., Lucille Chapuis, Shaun P. Collin, Daniel P. Costa, Reny P. Devassy, Victor M. Eguiluz, Christine Erbe, et al. 2021. “The Soundscape of the Anthropocene Ocean.” Science, Human Genome at 20, 371 (6529). .

Ginwala, Natasha. 2023. “Indigo Waves and Other Stories: Re-Navigating the Afrasian Sea and Notions of Diaspora.” Gropius Bau. https://www.berlinerfestspiele.de/en/gropius-bau/programm/2023/ausstellungen/indigo-waves/ausstellungstexte. 

Ginwala, Natasha, and Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung. 2023. “Indigo Waves & Other Stories Re-Navigating the Afrasian Sea and Notions of Diaspora.” Berlin: Savvy Contemporary. Ginwala, Natasha, ed. 2019. COLOMBOSCOPE FESTIVAL GUIDE 2019. Colombo: Festival Works.

Helmreich, Stefan. 2009. Alien Ocean: Anthropological Voyages in Microbial Seas. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Hessler, Stefanie, ed. 2018. Tidalectics: Imagining an Oceanic Worldview Through Art And Science. Cambridge (MA): MIT Press.

Mustill, Tom. 2022. How to Speak Whale: A Voyage into the Future of Animal Communication. New York: Grand Central Publishing.

Neimanis, Astrida. 2017. Bodies of Water: Posthuman Feminist Phenomenology. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

Pacheco Bejarano, Juan Pablo. 2021. “Ruins across the Atlantic: Speculations on the Colonial and Mythological Genealogies of the Internet’s Submarine Infrastructure.” In Proceedings of Politics of the Machines - Rogue Research 2021, 138–44. ScienceOpen. .

Pacheco Bejarano, Juan Pablo. 2024. “Humid Telepathy.” In Digging Earth: Extractivism and Resistance on Indigenous Lands of the Americas, edited by Catherine Bernard, 292–315. Cambridge (UK): Ethics Press.

Penjueli, Maureen. 2019. “Ocean Governance for Sustainability.” Global Civil Society Report on the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs, 167–73.

Penjueli, Maureen. 2021. “Pacific Futures for the Good of All (Mankind).” In Sternberg Press, edited by Daniela Zyman. Vienna: Stenberg Press. .

Sekula, Allan. 1995. Fish Story. Rotterdam: Witte de With/Richter Verlag.

Starosielski, Nicole. 2020. “Depth Mediators: Undersea Cables, Network Infrastructure, and the Deep Ocean.” In Deep Mediations: Thinking Space in Cinema and Digital Cultures, edited by Karen Redrobe and Jeff Scheible, 262–85. London: University of Minnesota Press.

Steinberg, Philip, and Kimberly Peters. 2015. “Wet Ontologies, Fluid Spaces: Giving Depth to Volume through Oceanic Thinking.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 33 (2): 247–64. https://doi.org/10.1068/d14148p.

Syperek, Pandora, and Sarah Wade, eds. 2023. Oceans. Cambridge (MA): MIT Press.

Are the sessions live or pre-recorded? All sessions are live, via a Zoom meeting. All sessions will be recorded, so you can access all materials in case you miss the online encounters.

Where will we be able to access course materials? All materials will be shared through an online folder, where you will be able to see the sessions, find the texts and readings, as well as other interesting materials related to each session.

How long will we have access to the recordings? The recordings will be uploaded after every session, and all materials will be accessible during the course and until two weeks after the end.

Will the bibliography be shared in advance? All references, bibliographies, links, and materials will be shared in advance to facilitate the reading and preparation time of the sessions.

Do I get any kind of certificate after the seminar? After the completion of the seminar, you will receive a non-official certificate as a proof of enrollment.

Do you offer any scholarships or special prices? We offer a 20% discount for students and IPS alumni (a document showing enrollment to any academic institution or university, or previous IPS seminars, will be demanded). We understand that the cost to attend might be a barrier to entry depending on where you’re living, or your personal situation. If you are interested in requesting aid please send us a request through this form and we will analyse your case.

Are the discounts accumulative? No, we do not offer accumulative discounts. What we do offer is a 20% discount in case of acquiring more than one product, being an alumni, or being a student.

For inquiries, please contact us at studies@instituteforpostnaturalstudies.org