A project by the Meditation Ocean Constellation

Six-channel video installation with ambient score, guided meditations, seating, public programming

67 minutes, looped

Meditation Ocean works for human and more-than-human well-being through oceanic meditation and responsive terrestrial action. A new milieu for multispecies mindfulness is introduced as meditating scuba divers “breathe with” the wildlife inhabiting each underwater site. M.O. emphasizes the interdependence of individual and communal healing and the nonduality of the social and the environmental.

In M.O. Turtlegrass Meadow, the premiere iteration of the project, a group of eight divers spent four days in Biscayne National Park in the Florida Keys. Experimenting with notions of buoyancy and what they offer to terrestrial concepts of “grounding” in meditative practice–along with new modes of weightless embodiment–the divers rose from the seabed to float in meditation.

This “underwater meditation retreat” was both a live experience and a video production. The resulting footage, captured with three underwater cameras shooting in the round, is being used to create an immersive video installation–an “indoor ocean” and soundscape. M.O. launches with an exhibition at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio, in February 2023, with plans being made for touring. The project’s far-flung oceanscape catalyzes a series of workshops, events, and programming connected to hyperlocal issues.

Meditation Ocean is supported by the Wexner Center for the Arts Film/Video Studio Program and Artist Residency Award in Film/Video.

Follow progress on Instagram: @meditation_ocean