{"id":5884,"date":"2024-04-04T08:44:17","date_gmt":"2024-04-04T07:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/writersrebel.com\/?p=5884"},"modified":"2024-04-04T08:53:19","modified_gmt":"2024-04-04T07:53:19","slug":"writing-the-ocean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writersrebel.com\/writing-the-ocean\/","title":{"rendered":"WRITING THE OCEAN<\/span>Dark Mountain Project <\/span>"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

As the world’s oceans, lands, humans and more-than-humans struggle to adapt to \u2013 or even survive \u2013 climactic breakdown, many of us feel powerless to stem the tide of destruction, to fix the damage, to find solutions for living and thriving on a planet that is bearing the brunt of our appetite for her resources.<\/p>\n

Fifteen years ago, the Dark Mountain manifesto was published. At the time it was described as \u2018a flag raised so that we can find one another, a point of departure, rather than a party line. An invitation to a larger conversation that continues to take us down unexpected paths.\u2019 These paths are still being walked, and shaped by our readers and contributors. Over the years, in our biannual journals and online, Dark Mountain has published art and writing from every continent on the globe \u2013 from land protectors, activists, farmers, and myriad artists and writers whose journeys have led their work onto our pages. The manifesto was not only an invitation to join the conversation, but a call for makers of all kinds:<\/p>\n

\u2018We believe that artists \u2013 which is to us the most welcoming of words, taking under its wing writers of all kinds, painters, musicians, sculptors, poets, designers, creators, makers of things, dreamers of dreams \u2013 have a responsibility to begin the process of decoupling. We believe that, in the age of ecocide, the last taboo must be broken \u2013 and that only artists can do it.\u2019<\/p>\n

Our 26th anthology \u2013 Dark Ocean<\/em> \u2013 will take the ocean as its theme. We are welcoming submissions from across the \u2018seven seas\u2019 of the ancient and modern world, from the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, Arctic, Antarctic, from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean, from the North to the South China seas, the Black and the Red Seas. The oceans of deep time and the imagination.<\/p>\n

We are also seeking, in this time of increasing marine disruption, where best to place our attention in the briny vastness most of us only encounter at its fraying edges. Looking to the horizon, it is hard not to feel overwhelmed by a tsunami of facts: climate breakdown and ocean acidification have resulted in the bleaching of 90% of the world\u2019s coral reefs, the disappearance of 90% of large fish from our voracious human appetite, the poisoning of mangroves by shrimp farms, the destruction of sea beds for shellfish; these planetary mutations have led to jellyfish blooms, algae blooms, seabird populations crashing in the Hebrides, whales washing up in their hundreds in New Zealand, mutilated sharks, diseased wild salmon, and the presence of plastic in every sea, in our own bodies. We are caught in this predatory civilisation, like turtles in a dragnet<\/p>\n

In many ways it is the responses of activists at sea that perhaps best define the modern ecological pushback against industrial extractivism. Since Greenpeace first intervened in the relentless whaling of the 1970\u2019s, plucky small vessels have defied the goliath trawlers, oil rigs and nuclear testing sites, from the Aleutian Islands to Antarctica. Some of the interventions are physically daunting and dramatic, garnering attention across the world, other actions smaller, more local. It is hard to forget the shocking images of oil-slicked seabirds \u2013 victims of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska, and the volunteers who spent days trying, often in vain, to clean these birds.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"
Grebe Victim of San Francisco Oil Spill, 1971 by Ilka Hartman (from Dark Mountain: Issue 20 \u2013ABYSS) \u00a9 Ilka Hartmann 2019<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Running parallel to the narrative of destruction however is another story. Initiatives spanning the restored coral reefs of Tutuila in American Samoa to the replanting of seagrass meadows along UK coastlines, to federally protected marine sanctuaries in the San Francisco estuary and eelgrass meadows in Virginia to the Windara Reef in South Australia \u2013 these have shown us that the act of imagining what a healthy ocean and shoreline could look like is as important as documenting its depredation.<\/p>\n

In many cases what is being striven for is space and time for the life of the ocean to restore itself, a process that can happen more quickly in the sea than on land. To allow this in ourselves requires a letting go of control and an imaginal encounter with the wild unknown. To see in our mind\u2019s eye the seagrass meadows connected with the kelp forests, leading to the mussel beds and oyster reefs and be able to envision the myriad lifeforms growing and thriving in these habitats. It is not enough to witness the destruction; we need also to be alive to the stories of regeneration.<\/p>\n

What if our stories began again here, by and in the sea? What if they took us to a state of being where we can hold the dark ocean as well as the light that plays on its surface, where we can weather the tsunami and still love the elements that give us life. Maybe what the world needs is not more facts, but people with their salty bodies and souls intact, their eyes and imaginations wide open.<\/p>\n

How might we regain an elemental kinship with the salty biome that sustains life on Earth? How might we create with and for the sea, in dialogue and exchange? What can we give in return?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Since 2009, Dark Mountain has been a home for \u2018uncivilised\u2019 writing and artwork that faces the reality of the planet\u2019s unravelling, and that tries to chart new paths through the changing map before us.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Call to action: send in your submission to Dark Mountain\u2019s October edition <\/strong>Dark Ocean<\/em><\/strong><\/a> by Monday 13 May. Your entry can be <\/strong>non-fiction, fiction, artwork, poetry, photo essays, portraits, interviews, recipes, testimonies \u2013 as well as contributions that might not fit any of those categories. Read the\u00a0<\/strong>Manifesto<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0for an idea of the uncivilised writing and art we might be seeking, and for details on what and how to submit,<\/strong>\u00a0please read our submissions guidelines<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and fill in the online form.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  As the world’s oceans, lands, humans and more-than-humans struggle to adapt to \u2013 or even survive \u2013 climactic breakdown, many of us feel powerless to stem the tide of destruction, to fix the damage, to find solutions for living and thriving on a planet that is bearing the brunt of our appetite for her […]<\/p>\n

Read More… from WRITING THE OCEAN<\/span>Dark Mountain Project <\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":5887,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,1],"tags":[1266,1267,200],"yoast_head":"\nWRITING THE OCEAN - Writers Rebel<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/writersrebel.com\/writing-the-ocean\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"WRITING THE OCEAN - Writers Rebel\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"  As the world’s oceans, lands, humans and more-than-humans struggle to adapt to \u2013 or even survive \u2013 climactic breakdown, many of us feel powerless to stem the tide of destruction, to fix the damage, to find solutions for living and thriving on a planet that is bearing the brunt of our appetite for her [...]Read More... from WRITING THE OCEANDark Mountain Project\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/writersrebel.com\/writing-the-ocean\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Writers Rebel\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/writersrebel\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-04-04T07:44:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-04-04T07:53:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/writersrebel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Dark-Mountain-logo.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"972\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"872\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Liz Jensen\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@XrRebel\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@XrRebel\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Liz Jensen\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/writersrebel.com\/writing-the-ocean\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/writersrebel.com\/writing-the-ocean\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Liz Jensen\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/writersrebel.com\/#\/schema\/person\/1df58884ec7482b96b5ab541e2676fd2\"},\"headline\":\"WRITING THE OCEANDark Mountain Project\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-04-04T07:44:17+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-04-04T07:53:19+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/writersrebel.com\/writing-the-ocean\/\"},\"wordCount\":996,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/writersrebel.com\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"Dark Mountain\",\"nature writing\",\"oceans\"],\"articleSection\":[\"read\",\"Uncategorized\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/writersrebel.com\/writing-the-ocean\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/writersrebel.com\/writing-the-ocean\/\",\"name\":\"WRITING THE OCEAN - 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