A year fully packed with new WE ARE OCEAN Projects!
We finished a good 2024 and are starting a strong 2025. For the ocean and for youth empowerment with Ocean Literacy.
2025 will be a year fully packed with new WE ARE OCEAN Projects! Thank you for staying with us in these times of multiple global crises and for believing in our cause and supporting us to continue spreading ocean literacy in the schools and among adults around the world.
What happens when a small NGO stays tuned, resilient and creative with a small dedicated and like-minded team? The NGO grows stronger and creates meaningful projects which contribute to real societal change.
Last year we continued our journey of Ocean Literacy with our WE ARE OCEAN Global Program under the UN Ocean Decade:
Our WE ARE OCEAN Global Program is endorsed by UNESCO as a UN Ocean Decade Project until 20230 and as such we promote Ocean Literacy (https://oceanliteracy.unesco.org/) to make the an intact ocean a goal for everybody, particularly young people.
As the director of ARTPORT_making waves, Anne-Marie Melster is a member of the German UN Ozeandekade Komitee (https://ozeandekade.de/) and together with a highly engaged team working pro bono to make the UN Ocean Decade and its goals more visible in Germany.
In April 2024 we participated in the UN Ocean Decade Conference in Barcelona with a side event where we screened the film WE ARE OCEAN Wadden Sea_KUNSTreusen by Insa Winkler and had a lively discussion with the audience about the WE ARE OCEAN Mar Balear Project and how interdisciplinary projects can contribute to Ocean Literacy. The audience cam from diverse backgrounds, academic, research, policymakers, and many early career people.
In June 2024 we finally brought WE ARE OCEAN to the Balearic Sea. Together with the artist Miguel Sbastida and the marine scientist Sandra Mallol, students at CEIP El Terreno (Palma de Mallorca) had the opportunity to dive into the world of corals. Through art and science, they could explore the beauty the corals living right next to them. WE ARE OCEAN Mar Balear was co-led by our director Anne-Marie Melster and Axelle Vergès from Positive LAB. We want to thank ProBleu Schools for having made it possible and Ona Futura Foundation and Associació veins Bellver d’El Terreno for the additional support.
In October 2025 we were invited to the the Award Ceremony of the Planet Hero Award by ZURICH Insurances in Cologne, Germany, to which we were nominated! A great honour to be recognized for our almost 20 years long work for a healthier planet. We met many engaged colleagues who are also warriors for water and ocean health. https://www.zurich.de/de-de/ueber-uns/nachhaltigkeit/zurich-planet-hero-award/gewinner
This year 2025 we make our WE ARE OCEAN Global Tour even stronger with a range of new partners and funders, and a great team of artists and curators.
We have been seeding the WE ARE OCEAN Blaupausen program for Germany together with our curator Dr. Julia Moritz and are ready to launch it now in March! It will travel to each of the 16 federal German states from now until 2027. This year we are starting with Berlin, Schleswig-Holstein (the city of Kiel), Hamburg, Lower Saxony (the city of Cuxhaven), Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (the city of Stralsund) and others.
We are very grateful for the trust which the following funders put into WE ARE OCEAN Blaupausen so far:
Stiftung Berliner Sparkasse for WE ARE OCEAN Blaupause Berlin (artist Tue Greenfort)
BINGO Umweltstiftung Schleswig-Holstein for WE ARE OCEAN Blaupause Schleswig-Holstein (artist Riikka Tauriainen)
Norddeutsche Umwelt- und Entwicklungsstiftung for WE ARE OCEAN Blaupause Hamburg (artist Till Krause)
Stadtsparkasse Cuxhaven for WE ARE OCEAN Blaupause Niedersachsen (artist Till Krause)
With WE ARE OCEAN Blaupause Berlin and our artist Tue Greenfort we will participate in the first German National Ocean Conference (“Nationale Meereskonferenz”) which will take place in Berlin on6th and 7th of May. We were invited to organize several activities together with the students from our school partner Rütli Schule who will participate in the workshop series. The full program will be published soon. We would like to thank the German Government and its Ministry for the Environment BMUV (Bundesministerium für Umwelt, Naturschutz, nukleare Sicherheit und Verbraucherschutz) for their trust.
We like to thank our German scientific partner ZMT for being by our side for the WE ARE OCEAN Blaupausen project in Germany. More partners and venues will be published soon.
In June 2025 we will participate in the UNOC (UN Ocean Conference 3 in Nice in June 2025) with WE ARE OCEAN_Nice Raconte-moi la Mer ! Together with our school partner Collège Jules Romains in Nice (WAO Nice has been selected during an open call organised by the EU-funded SHORE project and will receive 9.900 € to implement a blue project on the topic of the Mediterranean) we will launch the project on 11 March with the artist Morgane Ganault in collaboration with the Musée D´Art Moderne et d´Art Contemporain (MAMAC) in Nice, France. Artistic-scientific workshops with local excursions to river deltas and the Mediterranean will be followed with public events as part of the international conference.
Sweden: We established our non profit ARTPORT Sweden with our Swedish team Oliver David Krug and Olga Krzeszowiec. We will soon be back with details!
In November 2025 the pivotal COP30 will happen in Belem, Brazil. We will be there and contribute to the Amazonian cause with WE ARE OCEAN Brazil COP30. Further details to be revealed soon.
