Nedsenket Natur
Et essay om havet
(2021)
An essay about the ocean

Contemporary Art Stavanger, journal, November 2021

Octopus, water color, 2021

The ocean plays a central role in the many environmental struggles that take place today. Historically, the sea has been portrayed in many different ways through art, literature and science. In this photo essay Christine Hansen explores water and especially the sea in a quiet way. The work on the essay began with a residency at Utsira in the autumn of 2020. Her snorkeling excursions with photography and underwater filming have manifested themselves in many different media such as text, watercolor, silkscreen and cyanotype. The text consists of different sections, which relate loosely to the individual photos, where stories and facts are mixed with experiences of the sea. It is inspired by marine biologist and environmentalist Rachel Carson who was criticized for writing too poetically about the ocean. Carson objected to this in this way: "If there is poetry in my book about the sea, it is not because I deliberately put it there, but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out the poetry".