The ocean speaks
By Charlotte Stace
Disseny Hub Barcelona welcomes the exhibition, ‘The ocean speaks. New ecologies and new economies of the seas’. This new exhibition aims to shine a light on the impact human action is having on marine ecosystems locally and globally. It also seeks to reflect on how the city's relationship with the sea can be redesigned based on innovation.
Although a coastal city, it wasn’t until the 1990s that a man-made beach was made for Barcelona in preparation for the 1992 Olympics. Now, the climate crisis is causing us to re-evaluate the city’s relationship with the sea and its ecosystems. The exhibition addresses this issue in an interdisciplinary way, covering architecture, technology, speculative design and urban planning.
The starting point for this is the history of the relationship between Barcelona and its seafront. From here, it expands its outlook to coastal communities globally, which are home to 40% of humankind and make up a huge proportion of our most valued land.