This autumn, the Embassy of the Baltic Sea collaborates in an experiment in ecological representation: Consulates of the Baltic Sea. Together with the research-driven art and design collective Nonhuman Nonsense and the Åland-based regenerative company Under Ytan, we will explore what it might mean to represent a living sea — and what kinds of places, practices and relationships could make such representation possible.

Every day, decisions are made about the Baltic Sea: how much fish can be taken from it. What can be built along its shores and on its seabed. What substances may enter its waters. Which forms of economic activity should grow. Which habitats should be protected. Around the tables where decisions are made sit governments, businesses, scientists, municipalities, fishers and sometimes environmental organisations.

But what would it mean for the Baltic Sea itself to be represented?

And how could a human being take on such a responsibility?

These questions go to the heart of why the Embassy of the Baltic Sea exists. And they are questions to which we do not yet know the answers.That is why, over the coming six months, we will explore them together with people and communities around the Baltic Sea through Consulates of the Baltic Sea, a new project supported by the Horizon Europe initiative PartArt4OW.

The project brings together three different fields of practice: Nonhuman Nonsense, a research-driven art and design collective; the Embassy of the Baltic Sea, working with ecological representation and the Rights of the Baltic Sea; and Under Ytan, an Åland-based regenerative company working with marine ecosystems.

Rather than designing an institution first and asking people to join it, we want to explore what such an institution might need to become.

Three questions will guide the work:

How do we speak for the Baltic Sea?

What distinguishes harm from care in the blue economy?

How can people develop long-term relationships of responsibility with the ecosystems they depend on?

These questions will be explored through encounters between different places, people, forms of knowledge and ways of paying attention.

Representation begins with relationship

The Embassy of the Baltic Sea is founded on a simple proposition: the Baltic Sea should not only be treated as a resource or an object of human management, but as a living community with interests of its own.

Our Draft Declaration on the Rights of the Baltic Sea proposes that the sea and its beings should be represented in decisions affecting their health. But representation cannot begin with speaking. It has to begin with listening. How do we learn to represent a living sea whose language we do not speak? Science is part of the answer. So is the knowledge of people whose lives are closely entangled with particular waters and species. Art, sensory experience and direct encounters with marine environments may help us notice things that other forms of knowledge do not.

Brackish Diplomacy, Sea Ambassadors and Baltic Sea Consulates

The project brings these different ways of knowing into relation. For now, we call this emerging practice Brackish Diplomacy. The Consulates are places where Brackish Diplomacy can take form, while Sea Ambassadors are people learning how to carry this practice into civic, cultural and economic conversations. Together, these three elements form one experiment in ecological representation.

We begin by listening

During autumn 2026, the project will travel between several places around the Baltic Sea, bringing together different forms of knowledge through workshops, encounters and public events.

At Björkskär in the Åland archipelago, participants will spend time in marine environments alongside small-scale fishers and regenerative marine practices.

In Helsinki, artists, marine scientists, chefs and members of the public will bring other perspectives and forms of knowledge into the exploration.

At the Transition Conference in Nacka, the questions will enter wider conversations about societal transition.

And in December, the different threads will meet at a public Consulate Assembly at Transit Kulturinkubator in Stockholm.

Each place will add something: questions, observations, knowledge, experiences, perhaps disagreements. Brought together, these different perspectives can become part of something larger: a growing ability to perceive and represent the Baltic Sea through its many waters, species, places and relationships. The project will prototype methods and practices for doing this. The methods developed through the project will remain open for others to use, question, adapt and continue developing.

If you work with, live by, study, use or care for the Baltic Sea, we invite you to take part!