One Ocean was a three-day gathering exploring humanity’s relationship with the ocean.
One Ocean 2026 was a weekend of free talks, workshops and screenings on art, adaptation and the future of our oceans. Supported by the UK National Commission for UNESCO and The Peter Dubens Family Foundation, Turner Contemporary presented a rich public programme of talks, documentary and artist film screenings, workshops and community activities. Through art, science and storytelling, One Ocean aimed to translate complex environmental issues into accessible, action-driven experiences.
You'll find the full programme in the PDF linked below. All the events were free to attend.
Saturday 20 June events
What the Wild Sea Can Be with Helen Scales
Helen Scales opened the One Ocean 2026 programme with an invitation to look out to sea. Fitting, given what she revealed lay beneath it—an 80 million year old chalk reef: ancient plankton turned to stone, and now home to a living ecosystem.
This was a keynote about holding two truths at once. The ocean has never been hotter, more polluted, more exploited. And yet it recovers. From Arran's Lamlash Bay to French Polynesia, from returning bluefin tuna to regrowing mangroves—Helen shared proof that when we remove external pressures, ocean life bounces back.
Her honesty about eco-anxiety landed in the room. Not false hope. Not despair. A workable balance between the two.
As Helen moved between her research and storytelling, the blue thread was interconnection. One Ocean. One living system. A global story that's playing out on Margate's coastline. This opening set the tone for the entire weekend. How wonder and warning can be held together—and the quiet insistence that recovery is ours to steward.
What we learned
1. Hope and realism can be held together
Helen's answer to eco-anxiety wasn't false optimism but balance—the capacity to look honestly at how damaged the ocean is while still believing in its recovery. Despair and hope aren't opposites to choose between. They can coexist in the same breath.
2. Given the chance, the ocean recovers
From Lamlash Bay to French Polynesia's vast marine reserves, from returning bluefin tuna to regrowing mangroves, the evidence is consistent: remove the pressure of fishing, pollution, extraction and ocean life can be restored. Recovery isn't wishful thinking, it's already happening.
3. Global change begins with local stewardship
Helen showed us how tiny protected places, like Arran's Lamlash Bay, became a catalyst for change far beyond that coastal community. The chalk reef beneath Margate has that same opportunity. An 80-million-year-old protected ecosystem, that is ours to cultivate and care for.
‘There are examples across the world of places, species and ecosystems, that if we give them a chance, if we take away the pressures like fishing and pollution, they will come back, they can recover.’
Ocean Health and Human Health
Chaired by curator Janice Li, this session asked a simple question: how does the health of our ocean affect the health of our community? The answer, it suggested, is that the two are deeply interconnected. We carry the sea within us — in the oxygen of every other breath, the salt in our blood, and now the microplastics found there too.
What followed wasn't necessarily about answers. It was about widening our view. Nicholas Hardman-Mountford inviting us to reimagine our relationship with the ocean as symbiotic, rather than the extractive one of the past. Randa Kachef turned to waste and its impact on place. She highlighted how rarely we see value in what we discard compared with other cultures and the importance of changing perceptions. Andy Hughes made the case for how art can reach people in a way that other forms don't and how noticing is often the trigger for protecting what we love.
Then the audience question that maybe mattered most. As talk drifted to solutions, a local voice cut through. Where, in all this, was the reality of money and inequality that shapes the health of so many in our community?
A reminder that the health of the ocean and our health are bound together—and so are the lives of the communities living on its edge.
What we learned
1. Ocean health and human health are one system
The boundary between our bodies and the sea is more fluid than we think. From the oxygen in every other breath to the microplastics now found in our blood, the panel made the case that a healthy ocean isn't a 'nice to have'. It's the foundation of our own physical, mental and emotional wellbeing.
2. The real cost of waste
Randa's reframing stayed with the room. We talk about throwing things 'away'—but there is no away. What we discard doesn't disappear. It accumulates, mostly out of sight, in our water, on our shores, and in the communities left to live alongside it. The cost is real, and it isn't shared equally.
3. We protect what we love
Whether through Nick's deep-sea discoveries—over a thousand new species named in a single year—or Andy's lifetime photographing what washes up on our shores, the same idea surfaced. Wonder is where care begins. We look after the things we have learned to notice, and to love.
‘We are not necessarily the producers of the pollution around us. We're very much a product, or a victim, of the mechanisms and the neoliberal market that allows us to accumulate too much stuff, and doesn't accommodate getting rid of it.’
Art & Environment
How art, creativity and community are working to protect our coastline.
