Seascape: what separates us is also what connects us

The ocean is the timeless liquid link between our displacements, our separations and unions.
 "Seascape: what separates us is also what connects us" proposes a symbolic record of the human condition throughout time. The sea, portrayed as a mosaic of overlapping fragments, evokes one of our existential paradoxes: the distance that generates the need for proximity.

In the early days of humanity, the ocean was an absolute frontier, an almost mystical limit. For the first civilizations, the sea horizon was the end of the world. This geographical barrier allowed biodiversity and cultures to develop in isolation, creating a plethora of different languages ​​and customs. Without this initial separation, diversity would not have had room to flourish. However, it was coastal migrations that allowed our expansion. The sea provided challenge and sustenance for the journeys.

 Physical separation forced human intellect to innovate: from rudimentary instruments to the astrolabe, the sea compelled us to learn to read the stars to find the other side. The sea is a visceral mosaic, the stage for a profound and often violent encounter of realities.

"Saudades" — palavra tão lusitana e brasileira —  nos lembra a separação imposta pelo Atlântico. Milhares de quilômetros de água salgada separavam o colonizador de sua origem e o escravizado de sua liberdade, criando feridas na continuidade das histórias pessoais. Entretanto, foi este mesmo oceano que transformou o mundo em um sistema integrado pela primeira vez.

 "Saudades"—a word so Portuguese and Brazilian—reminds us of the separation imposed by the Atlantic. Thousands of kilometers of saltwater separated the colonizer from their origin and the enslaved from their freedom, creating wounds in the continuity of personal histories. However, it was this same ocean that transformed the world into an integrated system for the first time. The sea became the conductor of an unprecedented exchange. And also a co-creator of regional specificities and needs.

The mixture of colors from different worlds and realities merged into the same oceanic blue. The sea was also used as a weapon of political and military isolation in continental blockades. The vast blue expanse was still a place of silence and danger for those who crossed it.

 With the advent of steam and the telegraph, the perception of time and space was forever altered. The first submarine telegraph cables were laid following the same routes as the old galleons. The sea, which previously took months to transport a message, became the physical medium that united voices in seconds. The ocean ceased to be just a road and became a conduit for information. Much of global internet traffic travels through fiber optic cables on the ocean floor. When we click on a link, our data plunges into the same water that 16th-century navigators explored.

This fragmented work synthesizes the invisible infrastructure of our contemporary connection.

 The sea is the supreme regulator of the climate. The warming of one fragment of the ocean generates storms on another continent. What we discard on one shore, the current connects to the other.

A independência total é um mito geográfico. Estamos todos conectados e interdependentes uns dos outros. Ao longo de toda a história, o mar nos ensinou que cada pedaço de terra ou cultura só existe em relação ao outro. The climate crisis is an unavoidable connection—it unites us in a shared vulnerability that ignores national borders.

Total independence is a geographical myth. We are all connected and interdependent on each other. Throughout history, the sea has taught us that each piece of land or culture only exists in relation to the other.

“We are fragments of a single ocean, permanently connected by the same water.”

[Gabaskallás, 2026, Limiares - 16th Curitiba International Biennial of Contemporary Art]