¶ Tropixel: Mar das Coisas / Sea of Things
Tropixel Cycles - Seventh Edition
¶ Meeting about water at the Oceanographic Institute of USP / Ubatuba Base
¶ Ubatuba - July 30th to August 1st, 2026
Image by Karuvadgraphy from Pixabay
¶ Participate
The call for proposals is now open for the study, monitoring, and decontamination of waters — rivers, mangroves, and coastal zones of the Atlantic Forest.
We seek projects, practices, research, and devices that act directly on the material conditions of water contamination and circulation.
- Application deadline: June 6th, 2026
- Submit your proposal: Form here
- Meeting dates: July 30th to August 1st
- Location: "Clarimundo de Jesus" IOUSP Research Base - Praia do Lamberto, Ubatuba / SP.
¶ What will be developed at the meeting?
During three days, the Tropixel Cycle: Sea of Things gathers participants at the Oceanographic Base of the Oceanographic Institute of USP, in Ubatuba, for direct work on Atlantic Forest watersheds.
¶ How is the meeting organized?
The program is built from the selected proposals and develops as a collective work process, structured into four axes:
- Mapping and monitoring: Reading contamination processes through work sessions, low-cost technical workshops, and the use of sensors and environmental data.
- Scientific studies: Presentation and discussion of research, methods, and data produced in academic and institutional contexts.
- Territorial knowledge: Sharing local practices, situated experiences, and forms of knowledge linked to territories.
- Decontamination actions: Development of propositions applicable to rivers, mangroves, and coastal regions, with a focus on direct intervention and material feasibility.
¶ Curatorial text
The Sea of Things starts from the perception that the ocean, rivers, mangroves, and coastal zones compose a continuous material network of circulation. Everything passes through water: industrial waste, chemical compounds, nutrients, microplastics, measurements, infrastructures, and political decisions. Water stores, moves, and redistributes these traces. It operates as a moving archive, a surface of inscription for the present.
In dialogue with the Internet of Things, where connected objects continuously produce information, a material inflection is proposed here: matter itself informs. Suspended particles, physicochemical indices, and environmental variations make legible production chains, disposal trajectories, and operating modes of the infrastructures that cross the territories.
The Sea of Things names this field in which matter and information circulate together. A field of reading and action.
¶ About Tropixel
Tropixel is an open network that operates at the intersection of culture, technology, science, and society. It organizes festivals, meetings, and events based in Ubatuba. Its activities develop in specific contexts, bringing participants together in processes of experimentation and knowledge sharing.
¶ About LACO
LACO – Ocean Art and Science Laboratory is a transdisciplinary platform operating at the intersection of art, science, and ocean technologies. It carries out exhibitions, training courses, artistic residencies, and scientific publications. It acts in direct dialogue with oceanographic infrastructures and coastal territories.
In this edition, Tropixel and LACO coordinate at the IOUSP Oceanographic Base in Ubatuba, structuring the meeting around water as a material system.
ORGANIZATION
- Felipe Schmidt Fonseca - /U.CC/ + Tropixel
- Fabiane M. Borges - LACO / IOUSP
REALIZATION
- /U.CC/ (Ubatuba Sciences/Cultures)
- LACO - Ocean Art and Science Laboratory / IOUSP
- Oceanographic Institute of the University of São Paulo
- Clarimundo de Jesus Oceanographic Base (Ubatuba)
SUPPORT
Unesco Chair for Ocean Sustainability (IOUSP and IEA-USP)
