OKEAnoS includes a series of essays by scholars, historians and thinkers, interspersed with a selection from Allan Sekula’s vast oeuvre of seminal texts, as well as parts of his private notebooks, which include critical and humorous personal notes as well as sketches made and written over the decades and mostly focusing on maritime space and the material, economic and ecological implications of globalization. The title OKEAnoS is a reference to the mythical figure of Okeanos – son of Gaia, the Greek goddess of the earth – who ruled the oceans and water.
In projects such as his magnum opus Fish Story, or films such as Lottery of The Sea and The Forgotten Space, Sekula also provided a view from and of the sea, seen as much through the eyes of the maritime worker and seafarer, as through the eyes of the sea itself. This publication expands on these oceanic themes, seeking to honour the scope and complexity of Sekula’s work and to situate some of his ideas in the context of current political, social and environmental discourses.
OKEAnoS is divided into several thematic chapters, including “Containerization,” which focuses on the sea as a site of infrastructural complication; a review of Sekula’s Black Tide (2002–03), a work that explores environmental violence, pollution, and their social implications; a selection of drawings from Sekula’s personal notebook and an accompanying essay by photography historian Sally Stein; as well as essays on Sekula’s legacy rethought in the age of the Anthropocene; and a series of case studies of contemporary artists, writers, and thinkers that examine ideas that overlap with Sekula’s or extend his interests.
