Why is Sargassum increasingly inundating our coastlines, and how can we adapt to its presence? Join Pérez Art Museum Miami’s (PAMM) Green Family Foundation Caribbean Cultural Institute (CCI) and the TOUT-MONDE Art FOUNDATION (TMAF) for a multidisciplinary evening bridging scientific inquiry and artistic imagination.
Through a dynamic mix of film, live performance, and dialogue, multidisciplinary artist Henri Tauliaut, FIU food scientist Dr. Imran Ahmad, and curator Vanessa Selk investigate how the influx of seaweed is transforming coastlines, ecosystems, economies, and everyday life across the region.
Originally conceived by artist Louisa Marajo and Selk, this ongoing project has traveled from Martinique to Florida State University and the United Nations Headquarters, culminating in the 2025 publication HOMO SARGASSUM (co-edited by Martin Munro and Selk). Don’t miss this vital multidisciplinary program exploring new frameworks for ecological resilience, knowledge, and coexistence.
About Art-Science Conversation – Tides of Change: Caribbean Perspectives on the Sargassum Era
Over the past decade, massive blooms of Sargassum have transformed coastlines across Florida and the Caribbean, raising urgent environmental, economic, social, and cultural questions. Bringing together scientific research, artistic experimentation, and six years of curatorial inquiry through HOMO SARGASSUM, this conversation examines where Sargassum comes from, why it continues to proliferate, how it is reshaping Caribbean environments and communities, and how researchers and artists are imagining new ways of responding to—and working with—this changing ecological reality.
Featured Participants:
About Dr. Henri Tauliaut
Henri Tauliaut is a Guadeloupe-born multidisciplinary artist, performer, researcher, and educator based in Martinique. A Doctor of Visual Arts, he has developed a practice over more than two decades at the intersection of art, science, technology and the living world, particularly through bio-art and digital and interactive arts. His installations, performances and experimental ecosystems explore relationships between humans, plants, technology and Caribbean environments. He has exhibited and performed internationally, including at the 12th Havana Biennial, and teaches at the Campus Caribéen des Arts in Martinique.
About Dr. Imran Ahmad
Dr. Imran Ahmad is a research associate professor & food scientist at Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management, Florida International University (FIU). His research focuses on food processing, bioprocess technology, food quality, and sustainable innovation. With more than 16 years of experience in industry and academic research, he is currently part of a multi-institutional research team exploring innovative uses for Sargassum, including the extraction of alginate for potential food and industrial applications. His work considers how this growing environmental challenge in Florida and the Caribbean might be transformed into a sustainable resource.
About Vanessa Selk
Vanessa Selk is a Miami-based curator, art advisor, and cultural practitioner whose work focuses on contemporary art from the Caribbean and the wider Atlantic world. Founder and artistic director of TOUT-MONDE Art FOUNDATION | TM Arthouse, she develops exhibitions, public programs, and cross-disciplinary initiatives at the intersection of art and ecology in postcolonial and disaster contexts. A former French diplomat, she worked on Human Rights and Indigenous Issues at the United Nations before leading the French Embassy’s cultural programs for Florida and the Caribbean—now Villa Albertine. She has collaborated with artists, scholars, museums, and institutions across the United States, the Caribbean, and Europe, creating platforms that connect Caribbean artistic practices with broader global conversations.
Schedule:
6:30–6:40pm | Introduction & Context
6:40–7:25pm | Short Film Program
7:25–8:10pm | Art–Science Conversation: Tides of Change: Caribbean Perspectives on the Sargassum Era
8:10–8:20pm | Closing Performance with Henri Tauliaut
8:20–8:45pm | Book Signing, Q&A & Refreshments
This program will also be livestreamed on PAMM’s Youtube channel.
