Other Oceans

Millions of people visit aquariums each year. These showplaces are invaluable educational tools and, more importantly, provide a window into a mysterious world that few of us will ever experience firsthand. But that world is increasingly threatened by human misuse – by pollution, over-fishing, global warming. Accompanying the waste and devastation is a global trend toward building bigger, more fantastic aquariums. Marvels of architecture and engineering, these artificial oceans seem to be our way of preserving the sea even as we destroy it. The black and white duotones presented in “”Other Oceans”” are the result of visits to 14 aquariums in the United States and Japan and diving trips off the coasts of California (including Santa Barbara Island), Hawai’i, and Midway Atoll. In this work, award-winning photographer Wayne Levin seeks to understand and depict not only our complex relationship with captive marine life, but our love affair with technology, our desire for contact with other species, our impulse to educate, our capacity to dominate. Together with text by Thomas Farber and essays by Bruce A. Carlson, director of the Waikiki Aquarium, and nature writer and poet Frank Stewart, the captivating images gathered here should forever change the way we view these “”other oceans.