OCEAN TWILIGHT ZONE LIVE PRESENTS
ILLUMINATING THE ABYSS
Inspiration, Exploration, and Discovery in the Ocean Twilight Zone
SEPTEMBER 21, 2021 | 7:30-8:15 PM ET
Join four leading ocean explorers and advocates for a live conversation about pushing boundaries and seeking solutions—deep in the ocean's twilight zone.
- James Cameron - Ocean explorer and Academy Award–winning filmmaker
- Ray Dalio - Founder, Dalio Philanthropies and Co-founder, OceanX
- Peter de Menocal - President and Director, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
- Edith Widder - Deep-sea biologist and Founder, CEO, and Senior Scientist of the Ocean Research & Conservation Association
With special guest host, journalist and author Tatiana Schlossberg.
Speakers
 |
James CameronOcean explorer and Academy-Award winning filmmaker James Cameron is a Canadian filmmaker, deep-sea explorer and environmentalist. He has written and directed numerous Hollywood films and documentaries including two of the highest-grossing movies in history, Avatar and Titanic, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Director and Best Picture. On eight deep ocean expeditions, Cameron has made more than 70 submersible dives, the majority over two miles down, including 33 to the Titanic wreck. He has developed revolutionary vehicles, 3D camera systems and lighting to explore and image the deep ocean. He co-designed fiber-spooling ROVs to extensively survey the interior of the Titanic wreck, giving marine archeologists a definitive understanding of how Titanic was actually built and outfitted, and unprecedented forensic detail about its sinking. His forensic work at the Bismarck wreck has resulted in research papers and books that answer important historical questions about its final battle. Cameron’s scientific work has resulted in a number of peer-reviewed research papers about life in the deep ocean, and is ongoing. In 2012 Cameron became the first person in history to make a solo dive to the deepest place on Earth: the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench. For that expedition he co-designed and engineered the innovative submersible and science platform, DEEPSEA CHALLENGER, which was later donated to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. This achievement and his body of work resulted in Cameron receiving the Hubbard Medal, National Geographic’s highest honor, and the Explorers’ Club “Explorer of the Year” award. Cameron sat on the NASA Advisory Council for three years. As an expert in stereoscopic imaging he was a co-investigator developing the Mastcam cameras for the Mars Curiosity rover. The zoom lenses developed for that project are on Mars now, on the Perseverence rover. Cameron’s recent focus is on sustainability, and the creation of technology and agricultural practices for feeding the world with plant-based proteins. |
 |
Ray DalioFounder, Dalio Philanthropies and Co-founder, OceanX Ray Dalio is the Founder, Co-Chairman, and Co-Chief Investment Officer of Bridgewater Associates and the Co-Founder of both Dalio Philanthropies and OceanX. Ray and Barbara Dalio co-founded Dalio Philanthropies to support a wide range of causes including ocean exploration, public education, health care and health equity, and financial inclusion and providing equal opportunity. A signature initiative of Dalio Philanthropies, OceanX was created in partnership with Ray’s son, Mark. It stems from their deep passion for the oceans, their belief that the oceans are one of the planet’s most critical and least-supported and well understood natural resources, and their desire to “move the needle” on ocean awareness. OceanX and its media production arm, OceanX Media, explore and research the ocean and bring back stories to help audiences worldwide understand that ocean exploration is as or more important than space exploration—with the ultimate goal of creating a global community engaged with understanding, enjoying, and protecting the oceans. Ray graduated with a B.S. in Finance from C.W. Post College in 1971 and a degree from Harvard Business School in 1973. He and Barbara are signatories to the Giving Pledge. |
 |
Peter de MenocalWoods Hole Oceanographic Institution President and Director Peter de Menocal is the President and Director of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. A marine geologist and paleoclimatologist, de Menocal’s research uses deep-sea ocean sediments as archives of how and why Earth’s ocean and climate have changed in the past in order to predict how they may change in the future. Prior to assuming leadership of WHOI in October of 2020, de Menocal was a professor at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, where he served as Dean of Science for the Faculty of Arts & Sciences. He was also the founding director of Columbia’s Center for Climate & Life, a research accelerator dedicated to understanding how climate affects life’s essentials—the security of food, water, and shelter—and exploring sustainable energy solutions in partnership with industry, finance, and government. |
 |
Edith WidderDeep-sea biologist and Founder, CEO, and Senior Scientist of the Ocean Research and Conservation Association (ORCA) Dr. Edie Widder is a MacArthur Fellow, a deep-sea explorer and conservationist. A world authority on marine bioluminescence, Edie has racked up hundreds of dives in deep diving submersibles both as passenger and pilot. She has helped develop new tools for deep sea exploration that have produced many observations of animals and behaviours never seen before, including the first video of a giant squid filmed in its natural habitat (filmed off Japan in 2012) and in July 2019 the first video of a live giant squid filmed in US waters, less than 100 miles south of New Orleans. She has also spearheaded the development of water quality monitoring systems and new methods of mapping pollution. In 2005, in order to help protect the ocean she loves, she helped found the Ocean Research & Conservation Association. ORCA is a results-oriented conservation organization that focuses on using facts to drive change. |
 |
Tatiana SchlossbergJournalist and author Tatiana Schlossberg is an award-winning journalist and former New York Times Science writer whose work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, The Boston Globe, Bloomberg, Yale Environment 360, and elsewhere. Her book, Inconspicuous Consumption: The Environmental Impact You Don’t Know You Have, about the unseen environmental and climate impacts of the Internet and technology, food, fashion and fuel, won the Rachel Carson Environment Book Award in 2020. She lives in New York. |
SEE VERTICAL MIGRATION!
For four consecutive nights, from September 21 – 24, 2021, the massive video projection “Vertical Migration” will fill the entire north face of the United Nations Secretariat Building in New York City. It features a siphonophore—a remarkable gelatinous creature that is one of the myriad forms of marine life that inhabit the ocean’s twilight zone, or midwater. The 505-foot (154-meter) video installation was created by the Danish artists’ collective SUPERFLEX in collaboration with Kollision, as part of SUPERFLEX’s Interspecies Assembly project for ART 2030. It will be presented on the occasion of the 76th General Assembly of the United Nations. The projection highlights the importance of biodiversity in the ocean twilight zone to global climate. Read more about it in The New York Times.
September 21 – 24, 2021
8:00 to 11:00pm ET
United Nations
760 United Nations Plaza
New York, NY 10017
Four nights only!
Share your images
and tag us.
Be part of the movement to illuminate the ocean twilight zone.
#VerticalMigration
#ClimateWeekNYC
Dive Deeper
Want to learn more about the ocean twilight zone, climate, and ocean? Dive into these resources.
