How many colours has the sea

Charles Campbell’s installation at The Power Plant speaks to African Diasporic healing, connecting past and present through sculpture and collective breathing. His work looks closely at the history of the Middle Passage – the transatlantic slave journey which shipped an estimated 12 million enslaved Black African peoples across the Atlantic Ocean over the course of 400 years. Campbell has used bathymetric readings beneath the Atlantic Ocean to collect data in locations where many ships sank and over 2 million African lives were tragically lost at sea. His installation uses these underwater measurements and re-creates the atmosphere by suspending a sculptural installation from the ceiling mirroring the submerged terrain where the African and North American plates meet. Surrounding the sculpture on the walls are nine coloured panels depicting audio spectrogram images created from the sound of breathing, gathered from Campbell’s preparatory workshops. For more information on this process, visit The Black Breath Archive.

Campbell’s installation serves as a pathway to African futurities, which were disrupted by tragic injustice and harm – giving possibility to these lost lives and offering healing to those living, while creating a safe space to find acknowledgement, solace and care. Through his installation, Campbell builds a sanctuary that invites and encourages both private and collective healing. The installation is accompanied by audio recordings of the tranquil and tumultuous atmospheres of the ocean.

For the learning activity, the exhibition space is set up with a calming corner. Charles Campbell invites visitors to listen to a 9-minute audio clip, also titled How many colours has the sea, and participate in a breathing exercise that moves us through loss, healing and a celebration of what is newly found.