Welcome to Fish Futures’ online studio space

Fish Futures or the Future of Fish?

Fish, fishing, the ocean, and land based communities all stand at a crossroads. The ocean’s ecosystems are deteriorating rapidly because of pollution, changes to the environment and overfishing. This is a studio to develop an experimental traveling exhibition as a response to these issues. There are many approaches to the problem of overfishing and the oceans deterioration. Some strategies envision a more profitable future, some a more sustainable future, some a healthier future, and some don’t pay attention to the future at all. One major strategy involves privatizing the right to fish, denying free access to the inter-species commons that is the ocean and placing “Fish Futures” as a tradable commodity on the stock market. This “fish future” is deeply troubling. As a studio we are critically investigating alternatives to this approach of “fish futures”. How can a better future for fish and fishermen alike depend upon coastal and fishing communities being involved in the management of fisheries and conservation? How can the public be re-imagined as more than consumers? What does it mean to be responsible for the stewardship of our entangled human and non-human ecosystems that are the global commons of the ocean?

We believe that ocean ecosystems are an integral part of the planet’s life and good health, that coastal communities and fishermen are an integral part of these ecosystems, that fish are not commodities, that people are not simply consumers, and that we all need to experimentally evolve new forms of responsibility for the future of our shared human and non-human ecosystems.

The Future of Fish is held in balance by all the players – fish, fishermen, citizens, scientist, naturalists, farmers and the totality of our shared ecosystems.

So what does the future hold for the oceans and for us? We are not certain, but we wish to begin by imagining a fish future in which we and the world are not commodified, privatized and reduced to logics of consumption. This alternative will take many forms and give us many futures. What are they? This studio is an attempt to work collectively to imagine what these might be. We welcome your input and collaboration.

About the Studio:

This studio is an experimental collaboration between Parsons, the artist collective spurse, and the advocacy group NAMA. Our shared goal is to design a traveling exhibit to catalyze new engagements between fish, fishing and their entangled futures.

It is a hands-on studio that joins creative thinking, research, activist practices and making to find the shape and content of the exhibit. How and what it will become is about to happen! We know only that it will develop out of a series of workshops and seminars — and is student guided.

The exhibition will travel to various venues along the east coast during 2010.

We welcome your input. Our studio – and this site – is a work in progress. This site pushes our process out into the world while inviting thoughts and events to fold back in. Rapidly feeding back and forth. So, please email us or contribute to our blog. And check back often to see how our designs are progressing!

We would like to thank LEF Foundation, NAMA and Parsons for their generous support, enthusiasm, and willingness in getting this project going.

spurse, fall 2009