Forum:
Water Assemblies
Sea Snotting or Nothing Less than Flamboyant in the Salty Waters of Istanbul
Aslıhan Demirtaş
Salt Beyoğlu
March 4 – December 31, 2025
Boats sailing through mucilage
Photo: Yasin Akgül (Getty Images)
Photo: Yasin Akgül (Getty Images)
Initiated as part of Water Assemblies, architect and researcher Aslıhan Demirtaş will lead a research group focused on the phenomenon of sea snot.
Sea snot—also known as marine mucilage or sea saliva—is a thick, gelatinous organic matter found in oceans worldwide, with recent outbreaks observed in the Mediterranean Sea. As of 2021, it has made a flamboyant appearance in the Sea of Marmara, drifting towards the Black Sea. Pollution, rising temperatures, and other environmental factors have led to a proliferation of phytoplankton, which releases an “overabundance of mucus.” A complex bundle of mismanagement in urban and rural wastewaters, overextraction, and overpopulation, sea snot is a malformation resulting from marine and human-induced processes.
This research group will engage in embodied and experience-based methods to investigate, contemplate, co-create, and act to counter the ever-more evident and threatening occurrence of sea snot in the Sea of Marmara. The study will navigate its subject through performances, gatherings, and workshops at Salt Beyoğlu, alongside boat expeditions, collective swimming events, and conversations with coastal fishers in the salty waters of Istanbul, to create collective knowledge and future imaginaries.
A performance titled In Vain by Onur Hamilton Karaoğlu on March 7, a workshop on Istanbul’s Water Heritage by Onur Atay on March 14, and an experimental theater piece titled YOKTUR. by Fulya Peker on March 21 will be the main events at Salt Beyoğlu, where the group will have a dedicated space as part of the launch of Water Assemblies between March 4-22. This space will feature performance setups, videos, workshop materials, and a “Watertable” centering a seabed model of the Sea of Marmara, a captain’s log, specimens, and documents.
“Sea Snotting Expeditions”—a mobile on-site forum bringing together diverse voices on a shared boat—will embark on its first journey in March and continue with several partnerships throughout the year. A “Sea Snotting Circle”—a diverse group including marine biologists, fishermen, divers, swimmers, performers, and musicians, among others—will slowly grow and convene until November 2025. Currently, the circle includes Ali Cindoruk, Sera Tolgay, Nazlı Demirel, Onur Karaoğlu, Tolga Tüzün, Fulya Peker, Onur Atay, and the larger Water Assemblies group.
Aslıhan Demirtaş is the founder of KHORA Office, an expanded architectural practice focused on research, art, and ecology, originally established in New York and now based in Istanbul. Her practice is collaborative, transdisciplinary, and multi-scaled, producing buildings, landscapes, installations, exhibitions, and research across different fields and boundaries. Before establishing her practice, she had a long collaboration with Pritzker Prize winner I. M. Pei as the lead designer for the Museum of Islamic Arts in Doha, Qatar, and Miho Chapel in Japan. She has led studios, workshops, and lectured at several universities, including Parsons School of Design at The New School, Istanbul Bilgi University, Harvard Graduate School of Design, MIT, and Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. In 2022, Demirtaş served on the technical evaluation commission for the 15th Aga Khan Award for Architecture. She is currently working on Graft, a book that explores the relationship between modernity and nature through hydraulic structures, to be published by Salt with support from the Graham Foundation. She is a member of the Initiative for the Protection of the Historical Yedikule Urban Gardens and a founding member of the ANATOPIA cooperative.
Sea snot—also known as marine mucilage or sea saliva—is a thick, gelatinous organic matter found in oceans worldwide, with recent outbreaks observed in the Mediterranean Sea. As of 2021, it has made a flamboyant appearance in the Sea of Marmara, drifting towards the Black Sea. Pollution, rising temperatures, and other environmental factors have led to a proliferation of phytoplankton, which releases an “overabundance of mucus.” A complex bundle of mismanagement in urban and rural wastewaters, overextraction, and overpopulation, sea snot is a malformation resulting from marine and human-induced processes.
This research group will engage in embodied and experience-based methods to investigate, contemplate, co-create, and act to counter the ever-more evident and threatening occurrence of sea snot in the Sea of Marmara. The study will navigate its subject through performances, gatherings, and workshops at Salt Beyoğlu, alongside boat expeditions, collective swimming events, and conversations with coastal fishers in the salty waters of Istanbul, to create collective knowledge and future imaginaries.
A performance titled In Vain by Onur Hamilton Karaoğlu on March 7, a workshop on Istanbul’s Water Heritage by Onur Atay on March 14, and an experimental theater piece titled YOKTUR. by Fulya Peker on March 21 will be the main events at Salt Beyoğlu, where the group will have a dedicated space as part of the launch of Water Assemblies between March 4-22. This space will feature performance setups, videos, workshop materials, and a “Watertable” centering a seabed model of the Sea of Marmara, a captain’s log, specimens, and documents.
“Sea Snotting Expeditions”—a mobile on-site forum bringing together diverse voices on a shared boat—will embark on its first journey in March and continue with several partnerships throughout the year. A “Sea Snotting Circle”—a diverse group including marine biologists, fishermen, divers, swimmers, performers, and musicians, among others—will slowly grow and convene until November 2025. Currently, the circle includes Ali Cindoruk, Sera Tolgay, Nazlı Demirel, Onur Karaoğlu, Tolga Tüzün, Fulya Peker, Onur Atay, and the larger Water Assemblies group.
Aslıhan Demirtaş is the founder of KHORA Office, an expanded architectural practice focused on research, art, and ecology, originally established in New York and now based in Istanbul. Her practice is collaborative, transdisciplinary, and multi-scaled, producing buildings, landscapes, installations, exhibitions, and research across different fields and boundaries. Before establishing her practice, she had a long collaboration with Pritzker Prize winner I. M. Pei as the lead designer for the Museum of Islamic Arts in Doha, Qatar, and Miho Chapel in Japan. She has led studios, workshops, and lectured at several universities, including Parsons School of Design at The New School, Istanbul Bilgi University, Harvard Graduate School of Design, MIT, and Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. In 2022, Demirtaş served on the technical evaluation commission for the 15th Aga Khan Award for Architecture. She is currently working on Graft, a book that explores the relationship between modernity and nature through hydraulic structures, to be published by Salt with support from the Graham Foundation. She is a member of the Initiative for the Protection of the Historical Yedikule Urban Gardens and a founding member of the ANATOPIA cooperative.
