This meditative, immersive installation draws visitors into a world of submerged time and layered listening. Created by Sam Nester, Below the Line is designed as a poetic ending to the “Spices & Wonders: Sailing the Indian Ocean exhibition at Louvre Abu Dhabi.” This three-channel video and eight-channel spatial soundscape echoes the living systems of the Arabian Gulf and greater Indian Ocean. It invites audiences to encounter these waters beyond the historical corridors of anthropocentric trade, as dynamic, breathing ecosystems—worlds of sound, motion, and vulnerability to which we are deeply, inescapably connected.

Footage of ocean surfaces, coral reefs, and human touch trace the currents that flow between nature and culture, past and future. The soundscape—composed from hydrophone recordings, fieldwork, and sonified oceanographic data—renders audible the delicate, complex music of the Indian Ocean and our contributions to it.

Here, Nester invites us to listen beyond our ears with the fullness of our bodies—to dwell in slowness, in beauty, and in the fragile continuity of oceanic life.

Footage courtesy of Oliver Farrell and Oceans Media, and OpenPlanet.org