Blue Assembly

Curator: Peta Rake

Over the past decade, “blue” has been used to describe thinking about climate in terms of blue spaces such as the ocean, coastal ecosystems including mangroves, tidal marshlands and estuaries, seagrass meadows, and blue-adjacent communities. 

Understanding the climate as blue in addition to “green”, has reframed sustainable planning within science, policymaking, climate advocacy and action, law, and finance (for example, blue carbon, blue economy, blue governance, and blue futures). It is also shaping a new approach to the humanities, forcing a re-examination of human cultures and histories through a blue lens.

Blue Assembly is an ambitious multi-year program exploring our relationship with the ocean by gathering these “blue” approaches to research. It aims to upend our assumptions about the ocean, its role in human life and its future in the hope that we might inform policy around climate and the future of global communities.

Over several years, the program will encompass exhibitions, residencies, an online journal, screenings and more. It is underpinned by rigorous scholarly research, including collaboration with experts in UQ’s Centre for Marine Science, one of the largest and most diverse groups of marine experts in Australia.