AltaSea: Blue Hour 2023
Above & Below

October 14, 2023 - October 28, 2023

Taiji Terasaki will once again take part in AltaSea’s Blue Hour, an annual celebration of the ocean through various art installations. Curated by Kim Abeles, Blue Hour 2023: Above & Below, will feature installation, ceramics, video, glass, photography, sound, and painting by over twenty artists. Blue Hour connects science, culture, and community by combining art and technology to tell the story of the emerging Blue Economy.

With the exhibition title in mind, "Above & Below," Terasaki will install a monumental-scale re-imagining of his work Interconnection: Reef Manta Ray (Mobula alfredi) and Sooty Tern (Onychoprion fuscata), emphasizing the Sooty Tern's position above in our skies and the Reef Manta Ray's placement below the water's surface. 

Soaring from the warehouse’s rafters will be ghostly images of a Reef Manta Ray and a Sooty Tern, two species found on the atoll of Palmyra that have a symbiotic relationship within that unique ecosystem. As the viewer moves around the space the images fuse and separate, illustrating their dependence on one another while existing in two different realms. The work will be printed on semi-translucent fabric allowing it to respond to wind and movement within the space, hinting at the external forces that affect the preservation of both these species.