Hurry to see CAPE TOWN’S UNDERWATER WILDERNESS: A photographic exhibition at the Two Oceans Aquarium. The show ends on 31 May.
Danny Shokend’s review tells you why you need to go!
The Two Oceans Aquarium, Orhms Print and Framery, Nauticam and Dive Action bring to Cape Town a wonderful photographic exhibition on marine life off the coast of the Western Cape. Curated by Jean Tresfon, this celebration of marine life aims to donate sales from the exhibition auction (very modest prices indeed) to Shark Spotters in order to explore and fund further important marine research projects.
The exhibition brings together nine award winning photographers, namely Jean Tresfon, Steven Benjamin, Geoff Spilby, Allan Walker, Kate Junker, Olivia Anderson, Graham Fenwick, John Vowels and Morne Hardenberg and constitutes ninety photographs.
There are many levels on which one can appreciate and enjoy the exhibition: a meditative reverie of another world, as one gets lost in forests on and in the earth. One is easily captivated by this otherworldly light; this dendrite-like flowery arrangement; the seeming electrical surge of colours, a symphony oscillating between high-pitched angelic song and deep, sonorous silence. As one submerges itself in this alternative dimension, so one feels healed by its beauty, at once simple in design and complex, an eco-system pulsating with highly evolved mechanism.
Moreover, these high resolution, crisp and clear images – all the more so given the subtlety of that essential, transparent medium, namely water – gives me a sense of the gentleness and softness of that world within a world, down in the ocean depths.
One marvels at how the photographers comes so close to nature in order to produce such fine work, at once “capturing” nature as well as suggesting the inescapable and perhaps inexplicable beauty and bounty of the ocean bed. At the very least, this exhibition should inspire awe and wonder at the magic of nature. This need not simply be arts for arts sake, for this qualitative appreciation of the world around us hopefully motivates conservation efforts, as if the aesthetic and sensual world is not an end in itself, but inspires us – in whatever capacity – to take care of our planet and in particular, the little portion “given” to us here in Cape Town. And what an awesome task that is. For insofar as fish, plant, rock and water are components of this world, so we should guard against spoiling it, which might constitute a balance between letting it be and research to deepen our understanding and knowledge in order to make more informed decisions now and in the future.
The relevance of this exhibition artistically and in terms of scholarly output, is that perhaps it bridges the apparent gulf between the sciences and the humanities, and by its qualitative (as opposed to quantative) “analysis”, it may motivate positive action and policy implementation in terms of looking after the bounty here at the tip of Africa, where a more statistical analysis and fact-finding may be rather cold and drab in terms of motivating such action (though it may not).
In this sense, one might argue that the arts and sciences actually overlap. In the process, the exhibition is somewhere between pure, fine art and pure scientific documentation. This “in between” if you will is precisely a mechanism to bridge the so-called “two cultures”.
The light that filters from the earth and meets the apex of the ocean (read: photographs); the sense of a galactic universe and tumultuous energy and movement of life itself – all this conspires to render such images as particularly well-conceived and a delight for the eye situated within the context of the world class facilities of the Cape Town Aquarium, so the exhibition is beautifully contained amidst the impressive backdrop of the aquarium. Yet, beyond such edification and knowledge-gathering and aesthetic pleasure gleaned here, there is the realization that out there in the ocean, the ocean that constitutes seventy percent of the earth’s surface, lies undiscovered, unparalleled beauty, where creatures are free to roam and where our interaction with them ought to be respectful, where awe and wonder are the currency.
In the vastness of space, sentient life, as far as we know, is a rarity, so we should cherish the miracle. These photographs give one a sense that we can, despite the large human-caused extinction rate today.
WHAT: CAPE TOWN’S UNDERWATER WILDERNESS: A photographic exhibition
WHERE: Cape Town Two Oceans Aquarium, Waterfront
WHEN: Until 31st May
DANNY SHORKEND’s review first appeared in the Cape Times.
