Heart of Okeanos

Earth Day, Sea and Space Exhibition - London April 2025

Landsec’s new 7,000-square-foot venue hosted the Sea & Space Exhibition, which opened to the public on Earth Day. The exhibition celebrated how Earth observation satellites and space technologies monitor the health of our planet and oceans, providing over 70% of global environmental data.

Presented by Space for a Better World and the Space for Art Foundation, the show featured Petroc Sesti’s Tracing the Void, Heart of Okeanos, and Solar Relay. In partnership with Platform Earth, the exhibition also unveiled the latest additions to the Carbon Collection by Rachel Whiteread, Jonathan Yeo, Emilie Pugh, Marina Abramović, Nigel Cooke, and others.

The programme included the Ocean Film Awards and Screenings, which brought together scientists, artists, astronauts, storytellers, and ocean advocates in a landmark event: Ocean, Culture, Life. Over its first three days, the exhibition welcomed more than 20,000 visitors, uniting culture and conservation on a global stage.

Reefline

Exhibited at Faena Art , Miami art Week 2022. Part of the upcoming ReefLine installation in Miami Beach

Heart of Okeanos, artists impression of under water installation at The Reefline, Miami Beach

Heart of Okeanos

Named after the Greek god of the oceans, Heart of Okeanos is a sculpture inspired by Out of the Depths: The Blue Whale Story, a groundbreaking exhibition at Canada’s Royal Ontario Museum.

In 2014, the body of a blue whale washed ashore in Rocky Harbour after becoming trapped in ice. Led by Mammalogy Technician Jacqueline Miller, a team of scientists carefully removed the whale’s heart and spent three years preserving it.

This extraordinary artefact has long inspired Sesti, who envisioned one day returning the heart to the ocean, allowing it to exist once again beneath the water in its natural environment. In doing so, the work becomes both a poetic tribute and a gesture of renewal: giving life back to the oceans.

In partnership with Ximena Camino and The ReefLine, the sculpture will be transformed into a living coral reef, seeded with corals by marine biologist Shelby Thomas. The project embodies The ReefLine’s mission of restoring marine habitats where reefs once flourished.

Drawing on Roman Paleozoic cement and the natural processes of corals that capture carbon to build their structures, Sesti is developing a pioneering carbon sink sculpture medium. This innovative material fuses eco-friendly concrete with carbon capture crystals to permanently store CO₂ in rock form, a first for the art world.

The Heart Of Okeanos sculptures were inaugurated at COP27 in Egypt and Miami Art Week.