Soundings is an expansive portrait of the deep ocean, confronting the intensifying attempts to begin the first-ever mining of seabed materials. It moves from intimate encounters between dancers and sea creatures to Indigenous ancestral narratives and the hand-drawn maps of the first ocean cartographer, Marie Tharp. The voices of Pacific activists, lawyers and scientists resonate throughout, reflecting the nuanced debates. A rolling transcript relays the latest meeting of the International Seabed Authority (ISA), where states are drawing up regulations for deep-sea mining, together with a public letter from the Republic of Nauru stating its intention to submit an application to mine.
