CNP x ALTASEA

Creative Exchange for a Sea Change

CalArts Center for New Performance (CNP) partners with AltaSea—developer of one the most innovative ocean research campuses in the world—to connect scientific inquiry with creative expression. Through active research and exchange between artists, scientists, educators and entrepreneurs, CNPxAltaSea experiments with new forms of live performance that engage audiences in the urgent issues of our time, and invite them to discover the sea’s uncharted potentials for our future.


CNP Artistic Director Travis Preston Introduces CNPxAltaSea Initiative

CNP shares with AltaSea a respect for inquiry, a quest for new possibilities and an understanding that there remain vast depths to chart in both the sea, and in ourselves. Our goal is to do more than build awareness of the critical issues that we confront on our planet—climate change, energy supply, food security, and the profoundly inequitable way that communities of color are impacted by these issues. Our work is to creatively inspire action, and to build deep commitment to fostering change.

Our multi-year partnership will place the power of art—of story, image and shared experience—in direct exchange with scientific data, thought and innovation. Through residencies with artists and scientists, and the development of fully produced new performances, CNPxAltaSea serves as a laboratory for future-making.