Surging Seas comprises a three-screen video, a flag with a thermal map, a sound installation and a display of placards with archival images of environmental protests, posters, calls to action, climate-science futurological flood maps and text placards by Karikis.
Sourced from climate science websites, a video navigates over maps of different parts of the world (the maps are relevant to each location where the work is exhibited) showing the extent of flooding and land-loss different areas will suffer this century in a +2C and a +4C scenario. A soundtrack created in collaboration with the Liverpool Socialist Singers accompanies the maps; it imagines the sonorities of consecutive rising sea waves and references the waves of human noise created in eco-protests that Karikis recorded over the years. A two-channel video presents a transcript of an imagined conversation between two young people in 2080. They ask what brings humans together and reflect on the instinct to sustain and love all life, and our responsibility toward future generations. This conversation was developed in collaboration with 20-year-old students from Birmingham School of Art using instructional music scores by the queer musicologist and composer Pauline Oliveros.
