Publication accompanies the exhibition season at Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich, 15 March - 21 September 2025. Addressing one of the urgent issues of climate crisis, this book aims to raise awareness by exploring through art the challenges of humanity’s relationship to the sea.

Addressing one of the urgent issues of climate crisis and environmental pollution, this book explores our relationship to the sea: how we live alongside it, our bodily relationship to it, its role in the creation of a connected, global society and, perhaps most critically, the threat we pose to it.

Through a broad selection of works by contemporary international artists, Can the Sea Survive Us? responds to the urgent need to resuscitate our seas. While the oceanic environment is essential to all life, its vulnerability to human action is highlighted by an ever-increasing loss of biodiversity. This book prompts the reader to imagine a future in which collective human behavior can mitigate the effects of climate change. As ocean temperatures reach record highs, it is clear that time is not on our side. This ambitious project aspires to accelerate climate awareness and deliver the critical climate action we urgently need.