The ocean is a sensorium: it records the transformations of the earth in its complex dynamics, and it inscribes back in the forms of life its own cycles. Today, the global ocean is rapidly changing its circulations, energies, interactions, and ecologies. It is the most dynamic and sensitive component of our living planet, yet the most unknown. The ocean is in a new phase of its non-linear history,shaped by the intensification of the impact of human activities on the earth system—the Anthropocene.
This image of the Anthropocene is organized along trajectories stretching across the contemporary oceans and presented on large screens. The trajectories indicate the complex interrelations between forms of the Earth System and forms of human cohabitation. As they span the planet, they reveal the magnitude of the impact of human activity on the oceans. They offer a momentary glimpse into humans’ relation to a multiplicity of oceans in transformation, and a premonition about the future of these relationships. They indicate how fragmented and incoherent the knowledge of the oceans still is and form an invitation to collaborate and think together how to safeguard the future of the oceans and their cohabitants.
TERRITORIAL AGENCY
Territorial Agency is an independent organisation that promotes and works for integrated sustainable territorial transformations, combining analysis, contemporary architecture and urbanism, advocacy and action
We innovatively shape project through interdisciplinary collaboration with science, technology, arts and economics
Territorial Agency operates through a vast international network of practitioners, theorists and policy makers
Innovative practice with international recognition, shifting the boundaries of architecture and remote sensing
More than 50 years combined experience of architecture and planning
Lectured and published globally, work exhibited regularly in major international architecture exhibitions
Consistent contextual engagement with the places we work in, innovating appropriate to each context
Awarded prestigious funding for projects from private philanthropists, cultural institutions, advocacy institutions; most recently awarded a Lab in Waag an ERC Creative Europe project Beyond Planet, to democratise space technology. Our work has gotten support multiple times by Graham Foundation in Chicago, Svenska Kulturfonden.
Our advocacy work on integrated spatial transformations acts at the highest international levels, e.g. our influence at the One Planet One Ocean conference organised by President Macron in Brest in 2022, and for COP26 where Patti Smith used our visuals for the opening concert.
Appointed chief curators of the Lisbon Architecture Triennale 2025 with their research project How heavy is a city?
Members of the high-profile Anthropocene Working Group Forthcoming monographic publication in 2025 on the work of Territorial Agency
John Palmesino and Ann-Sofi Rönnskog are Unit Masters at the AA Architectural Association School of Architecture, London where they have conducted sustained multi-year work on the transformations of the Coast of Europe; the emergent technosphere planetary paradigm and have inaugurated a new project on Climate Peace.
Territorial Agency is awarded the STARTS PRIZE 2021 – Grand prize of the European Commission honouring innovation in technology, industry and society stimulated by the arts – Artistic Exploration.