On the 3rd of December 2025, MESSAGE organised an event at a beautiful venue, the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland in the heart of Dublin’s city center. This event featured London-based artist Sonia Levy.
Sonia Levy's inquiry-led filmmaking practice explores submerged ecologies and the entanglements of power, knowledge, and environmental transformations.
Her work, marked by site-specific and interdisciplinary inquiries, delves into the implications of Western expansionist and extractive logics, exploring how these forces manifest in the transformation and governance of hydrosocial worlds.
Her practice aims to probe the thresholds that have shaped and influenced the conditions necessary for life to flourish.
Figure. 1. Still from Sonia Levy's Film "We Marry You O Sea" WMYOS.
As part of this event, Sonia gave a lecture and a viewing of her mesmerising aquatic video-art. The lecture was combined with an interdisciplinary panel of artists and researchers who have all, in their own way, have worked on visualising submerged ecosystems and narratives.
Sonia's lecture focused on her video-piece titled “We Marry You O Sea (WMYOS)” which delves into the submerged and turbid ecologies of the Venice lagoon. In her lecture, she raised some fascinating questions about fascist underwater imagery which have leaned on crystal clear imagery of underwater worlds to symbolise fetishised fascist order. Through her lecture and showing of WMYOS, Sonia urged us to turn to the turbid waters - full of life, interactions and complex power-dynamics - to act as a refusal of fascist underwater imagery.
Figure 2. Viewing and Lecture based on Sonia Levy's WMYOS Film.
The lecture and film viewing presented by Sonia was followed by an interdisciplinary panel combining academic researchers and artists. The panel was mediated by MESSAGE’s research assistant Emma Millet and was focused on the theme "Visualising the Invisible".
For this panel, Sonia was joined by:
Dr. Ruth Leeney, Teaching Fellow at UCD's School of Biology and Environmental Science.
Ruth is an interdisciplinary biologist and social scientist whose research focuses on the impacts of fisheries on chondrichthyans (sharks, skates and rays), and the socio-economic and cultural importance of marine fauna for coastal communities. She has used BRUVs (baited remote underwater video systems) to help identify populations of endangered shark species and inform their conservation, and has worked with artists to develop educational materials about marine life for coastal communities.
Dr. Dominic Bush, Post-Doctoral Fellow at UCC's Earth & Ocean Science Lab.
Dominic has a background in Anthropology, Archaeology and Coastal Resource Management. His research has focused on the documentation and preservation of underwater cultural heritage, primarily from the Second World War and the link between microbial activity and corrosion of submerged aircraft wrecks off the coast of Hawaii. He currently works on the project the Instability and Pollution Potential Mapping of Irish Shipwreck Sites for a National Risk Assessment Database (I-PoINt).
Alan James Burns, Dublin-based artist.
Alan produces collaborative, interactive, socially engaged and site-specific exhibitions. The focal points of their artistic and curatorial practice are disability, climate change and the human mind.
In 2024, Alan produced the project titled ‘Foram’ which presents research from an artistic residency supported by iCRAG Research Ireland Centre for Applied Geosciences. The residency took place on board the Celtic Explorer research cruise, led by chief scientist and collaborator Dr Audrey Morley from the University of Galway and iCRAG. 'Foram' explores how all things, even what can appear as the most isolated and marginalised elements of our world, play a crucial role in protecting our planet.
Figure 3. From right to left; Sonia Levy, Alan James Burns, Dominic Bush, Ruth Leeney and Emma Millet.
The panelist gave fascinating overviews and insights on the implication of working with underwater imagery. Together with the audience, panelists explored the implications of creating and extracting aquatic information from the deep. Each panelist brought to the discussion their own methodology, feeling and frame of thinking which they applied to their own underwater worlds. We topped this great event off with warm beverages and delicious pastries in the sunlit reception room of the RSAI!
Figure 4. Enjoying a sunlit Tea and Pastry Break.
This event was made possible through the support of iCRAG and UCD’s Earth Institute. MESSAGE’s team is very grateful for their ongoing support.