Anne Duk Hee Jordan
Becoming Ocean: a social conversation about the Ocean
Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (TBA21)
Villa Arson, Nice, France
May 8–Aug 24, 2025

From May 8 to August 24, 2025, Villa Arson, TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, and Tara Ocean Foundation, in collaboration with Schmidt Ocean Institute, present Becoming Ocean: a social conversation about the Ocean, a major exhibition exploring the main challenges facing the Ocean in a choral way. More than 20 international artists are taking part in the exhibition through critical and documentary approaches as well as more sensory, poetic, or speculative expressions. The exhibition is part of the program for the Nice Biennial of Arts and the Ocean, organized as part of the United Nations Conference on the Oceans (UNOC3) to be held in Nice from June 9 to 13, 2025.

The exhibition is co-curated by three international institutions to underline the essential role of collaboration and the conviction that art and culture are drivers of social and environmental change.

Becoming Ocean: a social conversation about the Ocean will feature artists from the TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Collection, such as Seba Calfuqueo, Anne Duk Hee Jordan, Simone Fattal, Sonia Levy, Armin Linke, Ingo Nierman, Diana Policarpo, or Allan Sekula, and participants in the Tara Ocean Foundation’s artists-in-residence program, such as Antoine Bertin, Samuel Bollendorff, Nicolas Floc’h, Christian Sardet, Robertina Sebjanic or Laure Winants. The exhibition is also organized in collaboration with the Schmidt Ocean Institute, which presents a new work by Max Hooper Schneider.

Curators: Hélène Guenin (Director of the Biennale des Arts et de l’Océan de Nice), Chus Martinez (Associate Curator – TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary), Sébastien Ruiz (General Secretary of the Tara Ocean Foundation), Marie-Ann Yemsi (Director of the Villa Arson Art Center).