Cross Circuits with John Shiga
Sat Mar 06 2027
2:00 PM
You are invited to this season’s Cross Circuits with John Shiga, Professor in the School of Professional Communication at Toronto Metropolitan University, who will respond to Zadie Xa’s Moonlit Confessions Across Deep Sea Echoes: Your Ancestors Are Whales, and Earth Remembers Everything, an exhibition created in collaboration with long-term collaborator Benito Mayor Vallejo, through his research on sound, oceans, and environmental sensing.
Shiga’s research and creative practice explore the politics of underwater sound and how ocean environments have been listened to, interpreted, and represented through scientific and environmental practices. Drawing on this work, Shiga will consider the role of sound and listening in Xa and Mayor Vallejo’s immersive exhibition, exploring connections between marine ecology, technology, environment, and our relationship to the underwater world.
John Shiga is a Professor in the School of Professional Communication at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU), where he also serves as Associate Dean, Graduate Education & International for The Creative School. His research spans sound studies, environmental humanities, and media history, with current projects examining ocean sound, Cold War military science, interspecies communication, and nuclear colonialism. His work has received support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), including funding for his current project, Audible Oceans, which critically examines the social and environmental legacies of Cold War underwater acoustic surveillance.
