Award-Winning Films For A Sustainable Future

Ser Manguezal, created by Eliseu Cavalcante, was inspired by Josué de Castro's book "Of Men and Crabs" from 1967. De Castro was a Brazilian geographer, physician, writer and activist against world hunger. In his book, Castro envisions men as crabs, learning to walk in the mangroves. This relationship between them seems to unify and blend all together making the human being part of that specific biome. This film is part of an ongoing project that examines those who depend on the mangrove ecosystem to survive, and the delicate relationship between humans and this particular ecosystem. It seeks to recognize the hard-working crab hunters of the mangroves and make their work more visible, and to bring awareness about the importance of mangroves to the environment. Worldwide, 3,400 square kilometers (1,300 square miles) of mangrove forests were lost between 2000 and 2016, or about 2% of the global mangrove area (NASA). About 62% of the losses were due to direct human causes such as agriculture and aquaculture. Mangrove degradation is greater than the average for tropical and subtropical forest loss.

Does whale watching protect or harm whales? This film explores heated controversies over whale watching, boat noise, and orca conservation in Washington State and British Columbia. Whale watching companies claim that they serve as "sentinels" protecting the orca from unwary recreational boaters, ferries, and ships. A number of local conservationists and scientists have argued that whale watching boats crowd and harass whales, while adding noise to the orcas' immediate environment that makes it difficult for the social species to survive. "Sentinels of Silence?" uses dramatic imagery, peer-reviewed science, and interviews with conservationists, scientists, and industry officials to bring a fascinating chapter in the orca conservation story to light. In December, 2020, three months after Sentinels of Silence? was released, the Washington State Fish and Wildlife Commission made an historic decision to more closely regulate whale watching companies' activities around the Southern Resident Killer Whales, citing noise and harassment as factors.

SeaMonster II is a single channel video with sound, duration 14:19. All the objects used in this performance were collected at the sea shore near the artist's studio on the island of Aegina. This work is part of the "SeaMonster" series. The first iteration "SeaMonster Monk" a live performance took place at the Athens Art Fair 2019 and was featured at the WhiteBox NYC in 2023.

Inspired by Herman Melville's epic tale, "Moby-Dick or The Whale", a late-blooming singer/songwriter and former toy designer, Jen Long, acts on a startling vision and commissions the design and build of a remarkable custom electric guitar. It's body is "The Whale" itself as it snags the mad Captain Ahab in the tangled ropes of his own obsession, and prepares to launch a boat of his whalers to their doom. The entire guitar reinterprets Melville's tale as an Anthropocene climate change warning, with the whale representing the seas and storms of climate change arising on this "third day" of late stage capitalism. Hundreds of guitarists, including J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr., and Marissa Paternoster of Screaming Females, have played and signed this "Instrument of Change" to amplify the alarm to turn our ship of over-production and over-consumption around while there is still time. As the embroidered strap featuring Starbuck's last words implores: "oh! Ahab, not too late is it, even now, the third day, to desist."