In The Sea Around Us, I directly reference Rachel Carson’s book of the same title. It portrays the adjacent Pacific Ocean as a fully animated body and a place of deep interconnectedness where multispecies kinship fosters a sense of awe within us.
The Sea Around Us addresses past environmental abuse along the Southern California coast. Beginning in 1947 and continuing through at least 1961, employees of Montrose Chemical Corporation dumped barrels of the pesticide DDT and acid sludge waste into the ocean near Santa Catalina Island. (In 1972, the Environmental Protection Agency largely banned the use of DDT in the United States because of its adverse environmental effects and its potential risks to human health). The investigation by scientists is ongoing, but it appears that the equivalent of around half a million barrels of chemicals, including uncontained DDT, was dumped into the ocean at fourteen sites. These toxic materials have bioaccumulated across the food web, affecting the lives of our human and non-human kin. The Sea Around Us incorporates footage captured by robots sampling the contents of disintegrating barrels on the ocean floor.
In The Sea Around Us, we are guided by the abalone, a shelled marine snail that reflects the time immemorial of the sea, informing the imagery and cosmology of cultures both ancient and present. These include the Tongva people, who have lived on Catalina Island for at least 8,000 years, and the Acjachemen, who have lived along the coast of what is now Orange County for at least 10,000 years. Poetry inspired by the Tongva worldview frames The Sea Around Us. Flowing through the experience is an Acjachemen song intended to encourage listeners to embrace the natural world through alternative values and worldviews. Ultimately, we are called upon to be courageous enough to confront our exploitative legacy, to take restorative action, and to avoid repeating its mistakes by being fully engaged as we collectively reckon with and care for our troubled world.
Rebeca Méndez: Artist, Director, Writer, Producer
Drew Schnurr: Composer
Rahat Mahajan: Editor / Colorist / Additional Cinematographer
Tyler Schiffman: Underwater Cinematographer
Duration: 44 minutes, 26 seconds
