CORAL CONNECTIONS
Year: 2025 Type: A VIsual Art-Science Exhibition
Far from the vibrant reefs, a new connection is formed between the scientist and the living organisms they seek to understand in the laboratory. To understand how corals live and respond to a changing ocean, researchers spend long hours, even months and years, observing them.
The scientific process is often slow, and requires careful handling, detailed observation, and a tolerance for uncertainty. New insights come through unexpected progress, with cycles of trial and error, calibration, and refinement.
The exhibition “Coral Connections” brings together two video works:
Life of Galaxea and Life of a Scientist. Together, they offer an intimate look into the coral laboratory and the scientific process unfolding within it – revealing the often-invisible process of coral research and the meticulous, multi-skilled journey that defines scientific research.
Video portraits of the coral species Galaxea are bringing you close to this living, breathing animal as it is exposed to stress in controlled lab experiments. By simulating ocean hypoxia, the work explore how corals respond to environmental challenges, underscoring the urgency of climate change and its profound impact on marine life.
LIFE OF A SCIENTIST
This video work was filmed during an active coral research experiment. Every action observed, from sampling to data analysis, from coral maintenance to measurements, captures fragments of the scientific process. The work is slow and meticulous, requiring precision, patience, and acceptance of uncertainty.
To study oxygen consumption, colonies of Galaxea are carefully fragmented into individual polyps and affixed onto ceramic bases. These polyps are then placed into custom-made incubation chambers designed to monitor their oxygen exchange under simulated day and night cycles. The corals’ oxygen levels are recorded every second in order to track how much is produced during daylight periods and how much is consumed in the dark.
This experiment aimed to explore how corals function under low-oxygen conditions, known as hypoxia. By quantifying oxygen consumption through real-time measurements and mathematical modeling, scientists can estimate how long corals can survive when oxygen becomes scarce.
Installation details:
Life of a Scientist, 2025
4-channel video installatin with 2-channel sound
Videos projected onto four custom vertical fabric frames in a black-box space
Duration: 12 min (loop)
Variable dimensions (four vertical frames, format 9:16)
Exhibited at Prospekt Art Gallery, Copenhagen, 2025
LIFE OF GALAXEA
The two videos portray the coral colony Galaxea sp. (size ca. 4 cm). Galaxea was filmed in real time, which allowed us to capture its natural slow movements and discover unique behaviors over several hours.
Video left: Through real-time observation, we captured for the first time a regular movement pattern of periodic polyp contractions and extension (ca. every 10 min). These rhythmic movements may play a role in communication between polyps. By extending their tentacles, corals maximize the surface exposed to sunlight, and increase photosynthetic activity; through pulsation, they promote the exchange of oxygen between their tissue and the surrounding seawater, therefore maintaining a balanced and vital internal environment.
Video right: The slowness of movement is a behavioral response to oxygen deficiency in the water, diminished light, and stagnant water flow. While the same pattern of periodic contraction and extension persists, it is now far more subtle to detect. In these conditions, corals conserve their energy to sustain essential metabolic processes. But without oxygen, their vitality diminishes and resilience declines. If favorable conditions return, corals have the remarkable ability to recover and regain their natural rhythm.
Installation details:
Life of Galaxea, 2025
2-channel video installation with 2-channel sound
Videos projected onto two custom fabric frames in a black-box space
Duration: 7 min (loop)
Variable dimensions (two frames, format 4:3)
Exhibited at Prospekt Art Gallery, Copenhagen, 2025
“During this co-creation process, I wanted to step outside my scientific niche and translate my research through visual media to reach as many people as possible. Together with the visual artist and cinematographers, we developed the idea in a way that stays true to what we actually do in the laboratory while using film language to make it engaging and relatable. I also wanted to show that science can produce an overwhelming amount of numbers and that even we can feel a bit lost in the data sometimes. But the work doesn’t end there: we have to make sense of it, distill it, and communicate a clear outcome. Ultimately, the goal was to make what we do understandable, simple enough that anyone could follow, without losing the science behind it.“
“I was inspired by the hands-on realities of research — the slow rhythms, patience, waiting, repetition, atmospheres, and quiet effort behind coral science.
Working on this project shifted my attention away from scientific results and toward the process itself. The conceptual starting point was not knowledge transfer, but visual translation of the unseen part of scientific research: approaching science as a lived and deeply multi-skilled process made of gestures, tools, time, and care.Over time, I also became aware of the quiet relationship between the scientist and the coral — beyond a purely scientific view, an almost intimate connection emerges, shaped through years of observation, touch, responsibility, and devotion, growing into a kind of gentle obsession with this fragile, living being.”
BEHIND THE SCENES:
Behind the scenes images: the making of the art-science video works.
Credits
Marine Scientist: Walter Dellisanti
Visual Artist: Maja Friis
Produced by: Walter Dellisanti
Cinematographer: “Life of Galaxea” Anders Nydam
Cinematographer: “Life of a scientist” Sebastian Bjerregaard
Music composer and sound artist: Giada Squarcia
Colourist: Anders Vadgaard Christensen
Social Media Specialist: Stella Leung
Thanks to
Science Communication Incubator Network
Marine Biology Section and Øresund Aquarium, University of Copenhagen
