Philadelphia-based artist John Peña began his creative project entitled “Letters to the Ocean” in 2003. Every day, he wrote a letter to the ocean, put the letter in an envelope, sealed it, addressed it, wrote his own address on the top left-hand corner of the envelope, pasted a stamp on it, and put it in the mail. The letters were returned by the post office, with various official “return to sender” stamps or notes to the effect that “no such place exists.” One envelope was returned with a note saying: “The ocean is no longer accepting mail.” John Peña has over 3000 returned letters, which he has exhibited in various shows and galleries.
Intriguingly, all the letters identify a single location as their intended destination. Every one of them is addressed to: “The Ocean, 5 miles S Westport, Grayland, WA 98547.” When I asked John about this, he wrote: “I always send it to the same place. I have considered sending it elsewhere but I really like the idea that the ocean is so vast and ubiquitous that if I send a letter to one part of its body, it’ll eventually hear about it.” He later added: “Also, I came up with it because it is near a nice little spot I used to camp out near the beach.”
John’s image of the ocean as a vast, ubiquitous, and above all fully networked body is not only apt but of increasingly urgent consequence. The vastness of the ocean is rapidly moving, in human consciousness, from the status of an empty cliché to the basis of a statistically verifiable planetary emergency. As the landmasses we inhabit reveal their dependence on and vulnerability to oceanic conditions—reminding us, as Thoreau said long ago, “that the earth is not continent but insular” we awaken to the realization that our star-gazing species knows much more—and spends much more on knowing—about outer space than about the ocean. As James Nestor writes, “If you compare the ocean to a human body, the current exploration of the ocean is the equivalent of snapping a photograph of a finger to figure out how our bodies work.”
Yet the ocean is speaking to us loud and clear, with superstorms and tsunamis and bleached coral reefs, apparently responding to the “messages” we’ve been sending, in the form of oil spills, toxic dumping, overfishing, and islands of plastic waste the size of Texas (the Great Pacific Garbage Patch). One imaginative response is to speak for the ocean, imagine what it’s saying to us. A recent public service video has the ocean scarily scolding us in the stern voice of Harrison Ford. John Peña’s approach is the opposite: he addresses the ocean, privately, incessantly. “Ocean Oration” is located somewhere in between these two contrasting options. It has us imagine ourselves receiving messages from the ocean, but the messages are not as loud and clear as the one we heard from Ocean Harrison. Rather, they are enigmatic, intriguing, promising messages. They draw us towards a new language: an emerging system of signs, rhythms, and feelings. As we listen and try to decode the messages, they offer each one of us unforeseen gifts.
Lights up. Surf’s up.
The first waves of letters surge onto the stage. Mixed with them are garlands of glistening seaweed, clusters of clattering shells, and multicolored tendrils of micro-degraded plastics.
The letters are no longer in envelopes. They have been opened, unfolded, and their folds smoothed out. They have been heavily annotated: some words are underlined, a few words are circled, and many words have been joined together with arrows. The margins are covered with signs and inscriptions: some are shaped like fish, a few look like humans drawn in stick figures, and many contain shapes like waves. The annotations are written in an ink that changes now that it’s exposed to air and sun: the inscriptions—signs, lines, circles, arrows, figures—boil on the surface of the letters. They sizzle. They spark.
Blackout. Lights up. Surf’s up.
A second wave of letters arrives. They come in dribs and drabs this time—no surges, no sizzle. Each letter has a single marking on it: a sign that looks like a double wave. Some of the double waves have another symbol following them: a circle with a horizontal line through it.
What does it signify? Wave, wave, two halves of a whole? Bye, bye, hemisphere? Goodbye to half the world?
The letters begin to dissolve. The paper they are written on becomes mushy, the words on it blur together. The double waves and half circles float away from the pulp. They grow in size and begin ranging themselves in rows, rising until they form a barrier in the place where, in an old-fashioned theatre, the curtain would have been. The waves undulate. The divided circles rotate.
At first, both waves and circles move simultaneously, and a sound like a muted roar can be heard. Then the movements take turns: first the waves, undulating. Then the circles, spinning.
The undulations make a sound like gentle questioning; the circles, like urgent whispering. The dialogue goes on and on…
Questions: soft, hopeful, wheedling, impatient, fearful, hopeful again, hopeful again, hopeful . . .
Whispers: quick, insistent, sibilant, staccato. Desperate?
Blackout. Lights up. Surf’s up.
The eleventh surge of letters washes up on the beach. Each one is inscribed with two words, followed by a simple drawing of a container of some kind: a gift wrapped box, a vase, a casserole, a beer stein, a kettle, a hookah, a goblet, a lantern, a tea cup, a martini glass, a pitcher, a cocktail shaker, a salad bowl, an umbrella stand, a waste bin, a string bag, a dumpster, a paper sack, a tureen.
As for the two words on each letter, the first word on each one is “Dear.” That’s followed by a name, a different name on each letter: Dear June, Dear Alia, Dear Vikash, Dear Ivan, Dear John, Dear Angel, Dear Lise, Dear Jeong, Dear Guillaume, Dear Juanita, Dear Marina, Dear Youssef, Dear Ondine, Dear Hari, Dear Chen, Dear Sumitra, Dear Joy, Dear Maryse, Dear Velma, Dear Yu, Dear Dionysios, Dear Fatima…
Yes, of course your name is there… But you may pick any letter, and open any container. The contents are intended for you, you alone.
Blackout. Surf’s still up.