When Whale looks at Human

A great circle of netting hangs on a deep teal wall, a whale’s eye stitched into it in fine pale thread, watching. Below, on a shipping pallet, sixty pale ceramic teeth lie heaped like a jaw let go. Beyond the doorway, an ocean map glows blue.
Up close, the net becomes a sea of small teal diamonds. Pale knotted cord loops across it in one long, wavering oval, an eye drawn by hand, a dark knot of pupil at its center and loose white lines rippling outward like lashes, or currents.
Title
When Whale looks at Human
Artist
Carolina Caycedo
Date
2025
Description
A handmade fishing net embroidered with the eye of a humpback whale, made by artist Carolina Caycedo for Weather and the Whale at the Institute of the Arts and Sciences, UC Santa Cruz. The net turns the whale’s gaze back on the viewer, pointing to how commercial fishing gear entangles and kills whales while honoring small-scale subsistence fishing as a more sustainable way of living with the sea.
Artwork Type
Installation
Materiality
Textiles
Thread / Yarn
Climate & Ecology Themes
Oceans and Coasts
Biodiversity and Species Loss
Labor and Livelihoods
Concepts
More-than-Human Relations
Ecological Domain / Habitat
Open Ocean
Methods & Approaches
Art and Science Collaboration
Audience / Engagement Type
Public / General Audience
Location
Institute of the Arts and Sciences, 100 Panetta Ave, Santa Cruz, California
Geographic Scope
International / Global
Rights
Rights held by artist or creator
Website
Carolina Caycedo
Affiliated Organizations
Weather and the Whale
UCSC Institute of the Arts and Sciences
Discipline / Field
Arts & Design
Item sets
California Art & Climate Archive
UC Santa Cruz
Media
A great circle of netting hangs on a deep teal wall, a whale’s eye stitched into it in fine pale thread, watching. Below, on a shipping pallet, sixty pale ceramic teeth lie heaped like a jaw let go. Beyond the doorway, an ocean map glows blue.Carolina Caycedo and Courtney M. Leonard, When Whale looks at Human and BREACH #2
Up close, the net becomes a sea of small teal diamonds. Pale knotted cord loops across it in one long, wavering oval, an eye drawn by hand, a dark knot of pupil at its center and loose white lines rippling outward like lashes, or currents.Carolina Caycedo, When Whale looks at Human (detail)