The Sea Within

The Sea Within is an immersive art installation that places audiences inside the ocean, standing eye to eye with whales at life-size scale. Using ultra-high-resolution footage filmed in Tonga, transformed through visual effects and sound design, the work recreates the experience of being in the presence of these giants — their song resonating through the body, their ancient knowledge made visible as living light.

At its heart the project explores intergenerational grief and resilience. Whales once hunted to near-extinction in the Pacific carried their migratory knowledge forward through song, a survival of culture against unimaginable loss. This mirrors human experience: the inheritance of grief, silence and resilience across generations. My grandmother was among the 733 Polish children who arrived in New Zealand as refugees in 1944. Her unspoken trauma shaped our family, and in the whales’ resilience I found a mirror for that inheritance.

The work also reflects knowledge generously shared in Tonga, where whales are seen not only as animals but as kin, bound to the oceanic journeys of people and ancestors. Like Antarctica — while you were sleeping and Amazon — Raised Up Sky before it, it blends art, science and technology at monumental scale.