Moontide Divination

In a dark teal room, three bright screens hang at angles among colored wooden slats: crowds on a shore, a boat crowded with people on blue water, a man in white gazing out. Two black cubes sit on the floor for viewers.
Deep-sea dark around a pale whale carcass on the seafloor, its ribs and flesh lit by a single beam. Small ghostly octopuses and crabs crawl across it, many and patient, feeding on what has fallen.
Title
Moontide Divination
Artist
Mia Eve Rollow
Date
2025
Description
A triptych video installation by Mia Eve Rollow that layers new footage, archival images, and news media around the tides and the symbolic life of the sea across cultures to explore ocean ecologies. One passage follows a whale fall, the carcass of a whale sustaining deep-sea life. Shown in Weather and the Whale at the Institute of the Arts and Sciences, UC Santa Cruz.
Artwork Type
Film / Video
Installation
Materiality
Video / Digital Video
Climate & Ecology Themes
Oceans and Coasts
Migration and Displacement
Biodiversity and Species Loss
Concepts
Ritual and Ceremony
More-than-Human Relations
Memory and History
Ecological Domain / Habitat
Open Ocean
Methods & Approaches
Storytelling / Narrative Practice
Archival Research
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
mmiiaa.com
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
In a dark teal room, three bright screens hang at angles among colored wooden slats: crowds on a shore, a boat crowded with people on blue water, a man in white gazing out. Two black cubes sit on the floor for viewers.Mia Eve Rollow, Moontide Divination
Deep-sea dark around a pale whale carcass on the seafloor, its ribs and flesh lit by a single beam. Small ghostly octopuses and crabs crawl across it, many and patient, feeding on what has fallen.Mia Eve Rollow, Moontide Divination (still)