Sea Currents in Nineteenth-Century Art, Science and Culture: Commodifying the Ocean World

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How did scientists, artists, designers, manufacturers and amateur enthusiasts experience and value the sea and its products Examining the commoditization of the ocean world during the nineteenth century, this book demonstrates how the transaction of oceanic objects inspired a multifaceted material discourse stemming from scientific exploration, colonial expansion, industrialization, and the rise of middle-class leisure. From the seashore to the seabed, marine organisms and environments, made tangible through processing and representational technologies, captivated practitioners and audiences. Combining essays and case studies by scholars, curators, and scientists, Sea Currents investigates the collecting and display, illustration and ornamentation, and trade and consumption of marine flora and fauna, analysing their material, aesthetic and commercial dimensions. Traversing global art history, the history of science, empire studies, anthropology, ecocriticism and material culture, this book surveys the currency of marine matter embedded in the economies and ecologies of a modernizing ocean world.

Reviews

Sea Currents expands our thinking about human interactions with the oceans, linking developments in museums, consumerism, exploration, and colonialism with artistic and scientific culture, in an engaging discussion of how the ocean world was commodified by and for diverse communities. * Peter H. Hoffenberg, Professor of History, University of Hawaii at Manoa; co-editor of Oceania and the Victorian Imagination (2013) *
The seas leavings whalebone, spermaceti, isinglass, mother-of-pearl, coral, seaweed fascinate and allure. Exploring how nineteenth-century oceanic commodities were desired, extracted, displayed, and sold around the world, this volume provides a fascinating portrait of the Victorian sea and its global meanings. * Steve Mentz, Professor of English, St. Johns University, USA; author of Ocean (2020) and A Cultural History of the Early Modern Sea (2021) *
Sea Currents moves beyond sublime seascapes and shipwrecks to uncover marine object and display histories and the myriad ways they infiltrated everyday life. From rich and strange to domesticated, here the sea not only exceeds the frame but blows it apart. * Pandora Syperek, co-editor, Curating the Sea, Journal of Curatorial Studies, 2020, and Oceans (Whitechapel: Documents of Contemporary Art, 2023) *

Author Bio

Kathleen Davidson is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Art History at the University of Sydney, Australia. Molly Duggins is a lecturer in the Department of Art History and Theory at the National Art School, Sydney, Australia.