What could it mean to become guardians of the Baltic Sea at the time of environmental emergency and escalating geopolitical tensions? As a small inland sea the Baltic is considered a time machine, where the future effects of ecological changes such as global warming on the oceans are already evident.
Guarding the Baltic Sea started in 2025 as a multidisciplinary art project on the island of Vartiosaari in the Helsinki archipelago, Finland. Aiming to raise public awareness of ecological challenges facing the Baltic Sea and other bodies of water, including climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss, it brought together artists from Finland, Estonia, Poland, Germany and France through artistic residencies.
An international conference, workshops in collaboration with Aalto University, an exhibition, a video production and a feature on the German television programme Kulturzeit (reaching over 80,000 viewers) contributed to increasing the project's visibility and strengthening dialogue between art, science and politics. Building on the first edition, Guarding the Baltic Sea II continues the project in 2026, again bringing together artists from different European countries for artistic residencies and new forms of collaboration and experimentation.
During August 2026, Guarding the Baltic Sea brought together a group of artists from Finland, Estonia, Poland, Germany and France to conduct fieldwork along the shores and islands of Finland. The programme consisted of an intensive collective research retreat, supported by individual residency periods. Vartiosaari island (“Guard Island” in English) in Helsinki served as the base for the activities.
The retreat programme included visits to two marine research stations, Tvärminne Zoological Station (University of Helsinki) and Archipelago Research Institute (University of Turku), as well as the intergovernmental Baltic Sea protection commission HELCOM. It focused on sharing knowledge and methods between the participating artists and scientists. The project also included public events and culminated in the launch of a new publication on fieldwork practices.
Guarding the Baltic Sea is a project that brings together artists who are working with marine environments around Europe. Through fieldwork and dialogue with scientists in Finland the artists are tracing the complex ecological challenges that affect the Baltic Sea and its modern human communities today.
Taru Elfving, curator of the project
Following a second edition of an international conference and an exposition of the working results, a workshop with different EUNIC Clusters (e.g. Greece, France, Netherlands, Türkiye) and international experts from art, science, politics will evaluate and discuss innovative solutions how ocean literary could be brought to life and how knowledge, empathy and action can be combined.
