Nadia Huggins & Tessa Mars present other mountains, adrift beneath the waves at MAC Panama

A new exhibition bringing together the work of Nadia Huggins and Tessa Mars is now on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art Panama (MAC Panama). Titled other mountains, adrift beneath the waves, the project runs from March 5th to August 16th, 2026, and explores the shifting relationships between ocean, land, and identity through immersive installations, painting, sculpture, and video.

Curated by Yina Jiménez Suriel and Juan Canela, the exhibition is organized by TBA21–Academy in collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art Panama. First presented at Ocean Space in Venice in 2025, the project continues its journey in Panama with newly commissioned and evolving works by both artists.

An oceanic perspective through the lens of artists

At its core, the exhibition proposes an alternative way of thinking about the world—one rooted not in fixed, land-based perspectives, but in the fluid and ever-changing logic of the ocean. Drawing from Caribbean histories, ecological thought, and improvisational practices, the project reflects on how landscapes, memories, and identities shift across both terrestrial and marine environments.

Through their dialogue, Nadia Huggins and Tessa Mars invite viewers to reconsider how we understand space, movement, and life itself. The ocean becomes not simply a setting, but a conceptual framework—an environment where perception, power, and survival are constantly renegotiated.

Submerged worlds and fluid landscapes: Nadia Huggins and Tessa Mars

Nadia Huggins presents a multimedia installation blending documentary and conceptual approaches to disrupt romanticized views of the underwater world. Her immersive video A shipwreck is not a wreck (2025) places viewers inside a submerged vessel, where corals, rocks, and drifting bodies evoke layered temporal depths. By exploring buoyancy and shifting orientation, Huggins challenges the divide between ocean and land, inviting reflection on perception, time, and human presence in fragile ecosystems.

Complementing Huggins, Tessa Mars offers paintings and sculptural works in a call to the ocean (2025), where “awakened” figures traverse hybrid landscapes—mountains within mountains—merging terrestrial and oceanic perspectives. Through textured surfaces, sound, and symbolic imagery, Mars examines shifts in landscapes and identity, proposing improvisation as a tool for adaptability and resistance in ecological and social transformation.

The Initiative Behind the Exhibition

other mountains, adrift beneath the waves emerges from The Current IV: Caribbean, a three-year curatorial fellowship developed by TBA21–Academy. The program supports long-term artistic and research collaborations exploring oceanic ecologies and cultural knowledge systems.

The exhibition represents the culmination of research led by curator Yina Jiménez Suriel, focusing on the aesthetic strategies of Caribbean Maroon communities and the possibilities of improvisation as both a creative method and a critical tool. By bringing together artistic practice, environmental research, and cultural inquiry, the project encourages new ways of imagining coexistence between human and non-human life.