GFOE: INSPIRATION THROUGH EXPLORATION

7,000 attendees and 200 events at UNOC, I took the opportunity to build strategic partnerships and learn more from world leaders, policymakers, fishers, museum curators, scientists, and others about the key issues facing our oceans today, particularly as they relate to maritime industries like transport and the future of blue economy. The goal was to explore ways maritime museums can raise awareness, effectively preserve our global maritime heritage, and consider future opportunities for storytelling and partnerships. At the ICMM conference in Halifax this fall, Mystic Seaport Museum had three presenters: Christina Brophy, Akeia de Barros Gomes, and Chris Gasiorek speaking on the connections between maritime history and science; social maritime history; and historic shipyards. We celebrated our commitment to the ICMM manifesto with our peers and discussed the next steps. MAINSHEET In the first quarter of 2023, Mystic Seaport Museum will launch Mainsheet, a biannual peer-reviewed interdisciplinary publication. The goal of Mainsheet is to fill a gap in refereed scholarship on maritime studies that has been left open by the dissolution of the American Neptune and other like-minded journals over the last 20 years. While several excellent journals still exist internationally, Mainsheet will be the only publication of its type produced by an American maritime museum. What will also set Mainsheet apart are its multi-disciplinary perspectives, accessibility to a broad global diverse audience on issues past, present, and future, and its freshness of design and distribution. The prestigious editorial board represents a national and international team of invited expert scholars from various fields and partner institutions, with guest editors for special editions. Mainsheet will be globally focused, but each issue will be tied with annual institutional initiative themes at Mystic Seaport Museum which drive exhibitions, programming, lecture series, and the Frank C. Munson Institute for American Maritime History. The first issue will highlight maritime social history to align with our major upcoming exhibition Entwined: The Sea, Sovereignty, and Freedom and related academic programming planned with the Royal Museums Greenwich and the National Maritime Museum in Amsterdam in the fall of 2023. The following issue will focus on the connections of marine science with maritime history in regards to ocean health and the impact of maritime activity on the world’s oceans, historically and currently. This theme coincides with related fine art and marine science exhibitions, in partnership with Williams-Mystic and the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University, on biological invasions related to maritime activities. In addition to the six to eight peer-reviewed articles by scholars, Mainsheet will include poetry, fiction, and the arts that also connect to the related journal themes. There will be a section highlighting upcoming research of young scholars in maritime studies as well as reviews of publications, exhibitions, and important events for the coming season.

“Mystic Seaport Museum celebrates the history of the sea and the lives

of those who have been involved with it. There are not many places like it.”

- Museum Member

GFOE Explorations on Exhibit

The Global Foundation for Ocean Exploration (GFOE) has created a gallery of stunning underwater video imagery that will inspire visitors to delve deeper into the present-day maritime experience. GFOE presents information on their explorations in striking photographs and video, and Museum visitors can follow the expeditions via live, satellite technology witnessing the discoveries as they are being made. From the tropical southern Pacific to the North Atlantic Ocean, GFOE engineers and videographers travel the globe aboard the NOAA ship Okeanos Explorer, documenting undersea wonders such as shipwrecks from World War II, albino fishes and blue shrimp never before seen, and massive underwater walls of rock. The GFOE exhibit is currently on display in Clift Block in the Museum’s historic village. GFOE works to inspire the next generation of explorers and promote science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) careers by identifying and developing career paths for young engineers that allow them to experience end-to-end processes of undersea technology design through engineering. They also support filmmakers telling the stories of our oceans and increasing public awareness and appreciation of these unique environments. GFOE is dedicated to developing the abilities and fostering the relationships necessary to be a global presence in ocean exploration and an international resource for their partners. Through technology development and expertise in deep-sea exploration, they are increasing our collective ability to understand and protect our ocean environments.