Water/colour/bead

Abstract

Can necklaces be made to represent the ocean? Can the stubborn solidity of beads evoke the complex fluidity and fugitive shimmer of seawater? This experiment was recently taken on by an unlikely alliance of two projects – a research project called ‘Oceanic Humanities for the Global South’ (OHGS), based in Johannesburg, and the Marigold beadwork co-operative in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. Established in 2018 by Isabel Hofmeyr and Charne Lavery, OHGS aims to produce new styles of oceanic and watery research in the humanities that speak to conjoined environmental and decolonial themes. Although older traditions of oceanic research focus on the surface of the ocean, tracing movements of people, ideas and objects, OHGS engages also with a volumetric and material understanding of the ocean, exploring both surface and depth (DeLoughrey, 2017; Steinberg and Peters, 2015). The research has explored the ways in which different media attempt to represent the ocean, with its challenges of scale, visibility, depth, pressure and constant motion. These themes have been investigated across a range of genres, including speculative fiction, underwater photography, durational performance and canonical southern