Blue Aesthetics: Art and Aquatic Life

In an era of ecological crisis, multispecies entanglements, and heightened awareness of planetary interdependencies, we invite critical inquiries at the intersection of art history, artistic practices, blue humanities and animal studies. We seek to create a forum for reflecting on how artistic engagement with aquatic animals shape aesthetic discourse. Thus, we encourage contributions that examine the role of visual art, film, and music in articulating fluid ecologies and relational ontologies within oceanic and aquatic contexts. Of particular interest are submissions that challenge disciplinary boundaries and propose new conceptual frameworks for thinking across water, more-than-human life, and the arts.

Topics may include analyses of the representation of aquatic animals in art and aesthetics, as well as investigations into how art engages with climate change and animal ethics in relation to water. We welcome decolonial, Indigenous, and ecocritical explorations on marine life, alongside inquiries into water as an aesthetic and epistemological medium through which interspecies relations are imagined and mediated. Contributions might also consider aesthetic dimensions of marine archives, ocean memory, and what has been termed “Blue Extinction”. Situating these themes within art historical and aesthetic inquiry, the session aims to open new avenues for understanding how the arts not only reflect but actively shape our relations with watery worlds and their more-than-human inhabitants.

Submit your Paper via this form. Please download, complete and send it directly to the Session Convenor(s) below by Sunday 2 November 2025:

Jessica Ullrich, University of Fine Arts Muenster, ullrichj@kunstakademie-muenster.de

Martin Ullrich, Nuremberg University of Music, martin.ullrich@hfm-nuernberg.de

Tabea Sabrina Weber, University Bielefeld, tabea_sabrina.weber@uni-bielefeld.de