Léa Sisombat: The Ocean as Medium. Jürgen Claus’s exploration of ecological art through

Artists as divers, underwater cameras, sculptures in the pull of the current: the artist Jürgen Claus has been exploring the ocean as a habitat and site of creativity since the late 1960s. Léa Sisombat, recipient of the Jürgen Claus Scholarship, presents the results of her master’s thesis on his pioneering underwater projects. She follows his question: "What is the ocean as a medium?" Jürgen Claus (1935–2023) was a central figure in ecologically oriented media art since the 1960s. He gained international recognition through his underwater art projects, solar sculptures, and theoretical writings in which he examined the relationship between art, technology, and ecology. Since 2021, a significant part of his artistic estate has been preserved in the collection and archive of the ZKM, forming an exceptional basis for the exploration of his work. From the late 1960s until his death in 2023, the underwater artist continuously engaged with the concept of the ocean as a creative experience. About half a century after the conception of his lifelong artistic project "Planet Ocean," Jürgen Claus poses a fundamental question in his last two publications: "What is the ocean as a medium?" In her master’s thesis, Léa Sisombat seeks an answer to this question through the distinction and interplay between the two concepts of "creative experience" and "medium." The master’s thesis aims to examine the ocean as a theme, as an environment, and finally as a medium in connection with Claus's artworks in three parts. Léa Sisombat is a master’s student in her final year of the program "Global History of Contemporary Art" at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. Her academic profile combines art history with media theory, sound studies, and intensive archival research.