WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature)  and London-based Artwise curators are collaborating with the leading auction house Sotheby’s to present Art For Your Oceans, a selling exhibition featuring newly commissioned works by 17 prominent artists with ties to the United Kingdom. The show will be on view from May 8 - 15, 2025, at Sotheby’s on New Bond St. in London and has been developed to raise funds for oceanic conservation efforts by the WWF. Its roster includes names such as Scottish installation artist Anya Gallaccio, British sculptor Antony Gormley, British artist Emma Talbot and British artists including Lubaina Himid, Max Boyla, Andrew Cranston, Laura Footes, Laura Ford, Nick Goss, Mona Hatoum, Harland Miller, Beatriz Morales, Daisy Parris, Emma Stibbon, Katie Kaur and Caragh Thuring. Notably, this is the first art exhibition to feature the use of OCEAN INK®, a fully biodegradable ink created from sustainably farmed seaweed by OCEANIUM, a Scottish company that uses the flora to produce various products.

All of the artists have made use of the environmentally friendly ink in their commissions. Their works also reflect the ocean, from which the seaweed is harvested. Gormley’s Within (For the Oceans) (2024) is a murky illustration depicting a human figure submerged in an ocean, illuminated by sunlight penetrating through the water’s surface. A far cry from the artist’s more famous monumental sculptures, the drawing nonetheless carries a powerful emotional quality and is equally calm and foreboding.

British artist Emma Stibbon has contributed a striking landscape work to the show. Stibbon’s Rock Fall, Porthstinian (2025), also painted using OCEAN INK®, depicts a sea-facing cliff in Wales where the Breton hermit Saint Justinian lived in the 6th century. Laura Footes, who is also British, is showing Dream of the Beach (2025), which is a hazy and dreamlike oil painting filled with human figures engaging in recreation on the sands of a beach.

WWF supports seaweed farming as it helps tackle what the nature conservation organisation calls the ‘triple challenge’. This is the pressing need to combat the ongoing climate crisis, reverse the depletion of natural resources and meet the world’s food needs in the next 30 years. As the exhibition’s press release tells us, seaweed presents an underwater habitat for marine life and absorbs carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus, purifying the water bodies it is found in. It is highly nutritious and can be used as animal feed in order to reduce methane gases. It can also be used to create bioplastic, a biodegradable alternative to synthetic industrial material. Through the wider adoption of seaweed, we can reduce the amount of carbon emissions produced across industries and support the WWF’s advocacy for limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

Laura Culpan, director of Artwise, is curating the exhibition and recently visited Scotland with exhibiting artists Harland Miller and Emma Talbot. She expresses enthusiasm for seaweed farming’s potential in the exhibition’s press release. In her words, “We were able to see what is happening with the seaweed industry there, from harvesting to production of a spectrum of environmentally friendly products. This even included an advanced look at the seaweed-based ink, OCEAN INK®, which will be the starting point for new artworks created especially for this project. We are excited to see how artists and collectors will respond to Art For Your Oceans.”

‘Art For Your Oceans’ is on view from May 8 - 15, 2025, at Sotheby’s, 34-35 New Bond Street, London.  All specially commissioned artworks will be available to purchase online from May 1, 2025 at wwf.org.uk/art-for-your-world