The ocean operates on an extensive deep timescale, a place where prehistoric solution mixes and eddys with waters of the Anthropocene. It is a place that has held innumerable bodies to ease, to heal, in death, to death – the ocean is a vast gravesite while also being the origin of life. This deep timescale offers a foundation to explore the many notions of meaning the ocean has, holding space for rituals of care and the immense capacity for memory. I remember the ocean as the original brine to ferment with, learning the nuances of salt to water and the oceanic spectrum of flavours – from delicious to uncomfortable. The ocean is ancient habitat from the deepest waters to the liminal space of the ecotones at the shoreline, our human relations are deeply embedded with the sea that our stories flow like waves, as local fisher community activist Traci Kwaai reminds us, the sea is in our blood.
Author(s)
Zayaan Khan