Immersing the arts: Integrating the arts into ocean literacy

Abstract

This article tracks efforts to diversify Connecticut Sea Grant’s funding portfolio with an arts-focused award program and examines the implications of that effort. For over ten years, CTSG has supported its Arts Award Support Program, funding one or more individual artists or a collective each year. The program has led to a ten-year retrospective exhibition of the works of awarded artists and spawned a series of associated artist’s talks and transdisciplinary panels. Broadening ocean literacy to incorporate the arts and “blue humanities” leads to a richer and more robust knowledge of the ocean, enhances the process of learning and becoming ocean literate, and can generate value-driven or emotional responses that may catalyze conservation ethics. More research is needed to assess empirically the impact of the arts on ocean stewardship and conservation behaviors.