Baltic Sea Imaginaries: Infrastructure, Politics, and Justice

More than just a body of water—the Baltic Sea is a contested space of trade, extraction, and power, where histories of exploitation collide with urgent ecological and social futures.

This exhibition presents the work of Urban Studies students, the culmination of a semester-long research studio critically reimagining the Baltic as an environmental, political, and cultural entity. Through research, narrative, and speculative design, their projects engage with multiple sites, interrogating themes of infrastructure, necropolitics, and temporality. Spanning multiple media, the works invite viewers to reconsider the Baltic Sea not as a blank “blue void” on maps, but as a living space of conflict, memory, and possibility.

Projects by:
Melissa Wen Hui Lee, Paula Fischer, Yiğithan Akçay

The herring, vital to the Baltic Sea ecosystem, has long supported coastal communities and reflects a deep cultural relationship between humans and nature. In recent times, the use of herring nets has shifted from a means of sustenance to a tool of control, turning the ocean into a commodity that is divided and exploited for profit. To truly care for the sea, we must change how we see it instead of treating it like something to own or manage through man made borders and quotas. Drawing on cosmovision views, we must rethink our relationship with the ocean, seeing the sea as a living and shared space, not a territory to be claimed or governed.

Annabel Pops, Anna Bõhmova, Laman Mammadli

A “playground” for political, ecological and economic means of influence. An “in-betweenness” between sovereignty issues and international affairs. A place where the laws and regulations seemingly exist, but still don’t offer solutions.

Our project puts the focus on how the sea has been politicised to serve humankind, taking a focus on recent events in the Baltic Sea and against the infrastructure. We aim to open up the bigger phenomena regarding the politicisation and speculation of the sea, and critically map out the new realities, as the sea has become the new arena for political and profit-oriented games.

Hanna Steckl, Zoë Lipp

Starting with algae as a living metaphor, this project traces the Baltic Sea’s fragile balance—where rivers carry both life and toxins, shipwrecks merge with seabeds, and human intervention collides with natural cycles. By questioning rigid categories (land/sea, human/nonhuman), the work reveals the sea as an archive of layered histories and contested futures.

Sarah John von Zydowitz, Adeolu Jeremiah Afolabi, Bérénice Portier

“In three folktales of the future we try to negotiate human-nature relationships in a future shaped by rapidly changing climate. From localised symbiotic practices between humans and the Common Merganser, to dislike of other species for their looks – and excrements. We are on the search for hope in the safety of tales whispered in the darkness of a tent, carrying with it here and there, migrating stories.”