In The Sea Is History, the sea is not only a landscape, but a witness to the lives that have crossed its waters. The artwork, inspired by the poem of the same name by literature laureate Derek Walcott, evokes memories of movement, displacement, loss, and survival.
The work reflects on who gets to tell stories and histories, and what happens to perspectives left outside official records, memories and monuments. Through the 360-degree video and sound installation, visitors are invited to encounter these perspectives from different viewpoints, without a fixed beginning or end.
The Sea Is History asks us to see history not as something behind us, but as something we are still moving through.
Where are your monuments, your battles, martyrs?
Where is your tribal memory? Sirs,
in that grey vault. The sea. The sea
has locked them up. The sea is History.
Nobel Prize facts
Derek Walcott was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature 1992 “for a poetic oeuvre of great luminosity, sustained by a historical vision, the outcome of a multicultural commitment”.
NOBEL WEEK LIGHTS
5–13 December 2026 | 16:00–22:00
Stockholm City and Tensta
Teddy Goitom
Teddy Goitom is a filmmaker and visual artist working across documentary, experimental moving image, digital art and public art.
Through an Afrofuturist sensibility, his work explores memory, identity and culture, questioning who gets to tell stories and whose experiences are carried forward. Blending documentary observation with magical realism,
Goitom creates poetic and surreal visual worlds grounded in real people and places.
Music and Sound: Maurizio Berta
NOBEL WEEK LIGHTS
A light art festival inspired by the Nobel Prize
5–13 December 2026 | Free admission