“In this very spot, where you are standing or sitting now, people gazed out into the open sea 100 years ago. And a 1,000 years ago as well. And although it may be hard to imagine, also 9,000 years ago… ”

AFTERtheFLOOD is an immersive, site-specific audio work that offers listeners to use their imagination, dive under the sea and discover the lost world of the prehistoric settlements along the Carmel Coast, unfolding a timeline across the past, present and future. 

The 14 minute audio work invites listeners to gaze out at the sea, walk along the shore, listen, and imagine what once was a vivid coastal community with its traces now lying beneath the water, and how their story is nevertheless also ours.

AFTERtheFLOOD reconstructs the lives of the coastal communities of Neolithic people inhabiting the ancient Eastern Mediterranean shore some 9,000 years ago, until climate change resulted in rising sea-levels that flooded their settlements, leaving the traces of their lives submerged under the sea and unknown until very recently. The audio work tells the story of the amazing underwater discovery of these lost settlements by archaeologists and the present-day scientific research that addresses ecological questions about our relationship with the sea and the future implications of climate change and sea-level rise.

AFTERtheFLOOD emerged as an outreach project of BEFOREtheFLOOD - a research project investigating the submerged Neolithic sites off the Carmel Coast, led by Prof. David Friesem at the School of Archaeology and Maritime Cultures at the University of Haifa. The development of AFTERtheFLOOD is the result of a series of meetings and discussions between archaeologists, artists, museum curators and scholars in the field of heritage and education, aimed at translating the scientific research of underwater archaeology into accessible artistic and creative tools that will increase public engagement with the heritage of the earliest coastal communities.

Communicating scientific research to the public is a complex challenge: How can a body of knowledge, gathered and studied over many years, and filled with an enormous amount of complex details, be transformed into an accessible story? One that is engaging for different audiences, from children to adults, but at the same time serves as a historically-accurate and educational tool?

The encounters between scientists, researchers, scholars, and artists has been a remarkable and fruitful experience. Exploring together the coast, archaeological finds, and museum exhibitions, it allowed the scientists to share their knowledge and latest research results and theories, while the artists and scholars responded by asking new questions, which helped to illuminate new perspectives and narratives that go beyond the archaeological finds and into a new realm of experiences, emotions, ideas and moments in time. This unique intersection between science, art, heritage and education generated new stories to be told and a realization of which ‘secrets’ from the settlements forgotten on the sea bed for thousands of years could – and should – be shared with the wider public.

What knowledge and aspects of archaeological and environmental research should be passed on in order to tell a story that began 9,400 years ago, and while it had been forgotten for over 7,000 years, may still be relevant not only for our present-day lives but perhaps also thousands of years from now? Can a few archaeological traces lost under the sea inspire reflections on the distant future and on humanity as a whole?

AFTERtheFLOOD is the first artistic outcome of this creative-academic collaboration, which is now in the process to be further developed into more public outreach projects.