Become Ocean: Art from World Ocean Day Celebrations

Since 2021, in commemoration of international World Ocean Day on June 8, ARTSail, in partnership with the Blue Scholars Initiative, has been harnessing the power of visual arts as a creative champion for environmental stewardship through their annual World Ocean Day Celebration. Crafted with the aim of promoting ocean conservation awareness, the event offers an array of free activities, including art installations, recreation, impact, science, education and entertainment.

With each rendition, the organization commissions a distinct artist to conceive the Ocean Flags—a series of six grand flags prominently displayed on the beach during the daytime festivities. The original idea flourished in 2021 with flags inspired by the design created for the #SaveBiscayneBay campaign by AMLgMATD, a Miami-based multi-disciplinary collaborative art studio. The series then continued in 2022 with an installation titled Florida Endangered Species by Beatriz Chachamovits. Expanding further in 2023, the collection embraced a carnivalesque interpretation titled Become Ocean, which serves as the current namesake for the exhibition. This ultimate vision was brought to life by artist Marina Zurkow in collaboration with author Una Chaudhuri.

For the current edition, ARTSail commissioned former YoungArts award winner Maria Useche to create the 2024 flags titled Tidal Tapestry: Exploring Sea Life Patterns, which interprets ocean life through a kaleidoscope, juxtaposing animal forms with compositional abstraction to form a tidal tapestry.

The exhibition Become Ocean features a combination of the Ocean Flags produced to date, alongside two large quilts titled Weaving with Water, which were co-crafted through a series of workshops led by artist Deborah Mitchell and several students from Breakthrough Miami, The Motivational Edge and the Overtown Youth Center.

In addition to the intricately designed tapestries, Become Ocean includes a series of small coral-inspired sculptures at the center of the installation designed by Beatriz Chachamovits as homage to her large-scale exhibit Modeling the Reef.