Transformative Currents: Art and Action in the Pacific Ocean, edited by Cassandra Coblentz, brings together diverse writers, scientists, artists, activists, and thinkers to investigate social and environmental issues throughout the entirety of the Pacific Ocean, including Angela Mooney D'Arcy and Charles Sepulveda, Elizabeth DeLoughrey, Ziying Duan, and Aaron Katzeman. The authors and contributors are leading figures in the field of Blue Humanities—an emergent discipline ranging from historical to visual to cultural and literary studies on oceans—and they bring a rich range of expertise to the project. At this crucial time in which the health of the Pacific Ocean is in an increasingly fragile and volatile state, it is now more important than ever to document and share these individuals' work as we strive to raise awareness and foster a greater consciousness of how artists are making vital contributions to improving the ecological conditions of our oceans and coastal environments.
Transformative Currents addresses an important gap in art historical literature by not only addressing the complexities of this crucial subject matter, but also offering a platform for Indigenous writers and artists' voices to be considered in dialogue with their Western colleagues. The book and accompanying exhibition of the same name, curated by Coblentz with Katzeman and Duan for Getty's PST ART: Art & Science Collide, includes work by artists at many stages in their careers and from a variety of locations. The exhibition offers a distinct mix of voices from a wide array of geographical and professional backgrounds and is among the first to harness this diverse range of cultural perspectives about environmental issues throughout the Pacific Ocean.
Cassandra Coblentz has a diverse curatorial practice that champions the artistic process and forefronts creating meaningful, engaging experiences for audiences with works of art. As an independent curator, she continues to take innovative approaches to collaborating with artists, curating exhibitions, and building community. Coblentz has curated over fifty exhibitions, collaborated with artists to produce over sixty newly commissioned works of art, and published numerous exhibition catalogs. For six years she was senior curator and director of public engagement at the Orange County Museum of Art, where she curated the 2017 California-Pacific Triennial: Building as Ever, and designed and implemented the program concept for the museum's temporary location, OCMAExpand. She is lead curator of Transformative Currents: Art and Action in the Pacific Ocean for Getty's PST ART: Art & Science Collide, 2024.
Aaron Katzeman is an art historian, curator, and postdoctoral fellow at the Getty Research Institute. His research focuses on contemporary environmental art and visual culture produced alongside resistance to military occupation, social movements for agrarian reform, and anti-colonial national liberation struggles. Aaron's writing has appeared in Radical History Review, Third Text, caa.reviews, and Pacific Arts. He was formerly a Landhaus Fellow at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society in Munich, Germany, and earned his PhD in Visual Studies with an emphasis in Global Studies from the University of California, Irvine. He is assistant curator for Transformative Currents: Art and Action in the Pacific Ocean.
Ziying Duan is the assistant curator at the Orange County Museum of Art. She previously served as an assistant curator at both the Chinese Culture Foundation of San Francisco and Kadist. She was a grantee of The Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation Greater China Research Grant (Hong Kong) for her project Canton (Mix) Express: A Regional/Spatial Model. Duan holds an MA in Curatorial Practice from California College of the Arts (San Francisco), and both a BA and an MA in Art History from the Central Academy of Fine Arts (Beijing). She is assistant curator for Transformative Currents: Art and Action in the Pacific Ocean.
