Thank-you for your interest in ARTISTS FOR THE OCEAN, an online exhibition project under development by Art & Science Collaborations, Inc. (ASCI).  The mission of this project is to demonstrate how the arts can be an effective tool in raising public awareness about the critical state of our oceans, its role as the fabric of life on our planet, the plight of its endangered marine life, as well as the "dance" of interdependency required to sustain its ecological balance... [or about the current imbalance and its affects]. The artwork does not have to reference these ideas directly, but most likely will be inspired by some aspect of them and a desire for your aesthetic "voice" to be heard about one of the most important environmental topics of our time.

ARTISTS FOR THE OCEAN flows from the personal passion of ASCI's Founder/ Director, Cynthia Pannucci.  Her concern for this humanitarian topic began on her first snorkeling excursion in the Florida Keys in 1998. Since then she been learning about the critical issues involved in ocean ecology/conservation via the many online websites of ocean NGO's [non-governmental organizations] and also NOAA's website [US gov]. She also participated at the World Ocean Network meeting in Boulogne-Sur-Mer [Normandy] France in 2006 and was an invited presenter at the International Ocean Institute's conference "Pacem in Maribus: Women, Youth, and the Sea" in Malta in 2007. Asking the question of how the art and science communities can collaborate on the task of raising public understanding about and stewardship of our oceans, has culminated in the development of Beneath-the-SEE, a global art-science public awareness initiative.

Because of the large scope of Beneath-the-SEE, we do not anticipate a launch till 2010. In the meantime, since ASCI has years of experience producing international Open Calls and online exhibitions, we will produce ARTISTS FOR THE OCEAN. This project will be a highly-visible and accessible online showcase promoted worldwide to aquaria, science museums, art museums/centers [near the sea], and to online art and science journals.

GOALS:
Our immediate goal is to begin the online exhibition with a small, strong group of international artists whose work [in all media] can be beautifully documented online. This "seed" group provides a way of inviting others to submit their work for consideration, and also inspiring artists to create new work, thus creating a cannonball effect. We anticipate building-out the online exhibition over the next 3-5 years.

Ideally, along the way, the online exhibition will:
- become a physical exhibition in New York City [ASCI's hometown]
- inspire museums to select artists from the online exhibition for their shows
- stimulate science and art teachers/professors to share the artworks with their students for classroom discussion and student projects
- and hopefully, ASCI will produce a coffee-table book of selections from the online exhibition that will be promoted online with Beneath-the-SEE

IF YOU HAVE ARTWORK THAT FITS:
"Pretty pictures of the ocean" is not what this project is about. If you believe you have artwork that makes a strong conceptual and visual statement related to the vision and project mission stated above, ASCI welcomes the opportunity to see your work.

WHAT TO SEND:
Image and text documentation of artwork in all media is being sought. Ideally you can provide us with specific image URLs. [this is NOT your homepage URL]

OR,,,,,
if you don't have a website, send us jpgs [400x400 pixels max/saved at 72dpi] of three images + text [titles, media, year + max. 100 words "statement" about the work].

We look forward to hearing from you, and please let us know if you have any questions. Also, if you have seen inspiring artwork on this topic, we'd love to have your referrals.

We will be collecting documentation of work on an "on-going basis." We will notify people about our progress with the online exhibition project when we are ready to take the next step.

Sincerely,
Cynthia Pannucci
ASCI Founder/Director
asci@asci.org
www.asci.org

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Since 1991, Art & Science Collaborations, Inc. (ASCI) has been providing the international art-sci-tech community with timely information about the news, events, exhibitions, workshops, lectures, opportunities, and resources in this burgeoning field. The ASCI ebulletin, one of the world's most comprehensive, multidisciplinary, hyperlinked art-sci information listings, will keep you ahead of the "information curve."