MUSEUM OF THE DEEP
by Surin Seo
The research focuses on the role of decommissioned industrial structures in marine ecological restoration and their reinterpretation as cultural heritage.
Film Logline: In 2040, a photographer visits the Museum of the Deep, located in the middle of the North Sea. As he documents the remnants of industry and the new order shaped by nature, he contemplates how human traces are absorbed into the ocean’s evolving landscape.
Museum of the Deep is a project set in the year 2040. It imagines an underwater museum built on the Dogger Bank in the North Sea. The museum is made from old cargo ships and industrial waste, left behind after the 2025 North Sea Treaty. It helps restore marine life and also keeps a record of human industry.
This project is inspired by Timothy Morton’s idea of dark ecology. It does not see nature and humans as separate. Instead, it shows how they are connected, even in broken and difficult ways. In the museum, visitors see how sea life grows on the remains of industry. It shows that nature and history can exist together.
Visitors can dive or walk through underwater tunnels. As they move, they feel the space with their whole body. The museum helps people think about how humans, nature, and technology affect each other. The goal is not just to fix the environment, but to design a space where we can face the past and imagine a better future.