Humanity is so destructive to its environment that if we care about it, we sense a prevailing urge to preserve and restore it. In doing so, we foster the notion of nature as an overall balanced and content entity. We perpetuate the belief in a paradisal primal state—that is, until humanity messed things up.

However, as humanity has already drastically changed nature, nonhumans might resent being pushed into reservations. Many wild species adapted to the city and prefer its conveniences to a pseudo wilderness. What else could please them, if given the choice?

Ocean Wants is a series of ten podcasts commissioned by TBA21–Academy that playfully explores how nonhumans could like our planet to be. In each episode, writer Ingo Niermann meets with an expert from a different field to ask: What would a given species come up with if it could be as dominant as humans have been? What if fish, whales, octopuses, jellyfish, corals, algae, or extremophiles claimed to rule the world? What is their ideal environment and which role could human myths, habits, and technologies play in satisfying their needs? 

Ocean Wants confronts humanity with creatures that speculatively mirror its hubris. All are inhabitants of the sea—the vast and most neglected and alien part of our environment. It is here where humanity is meant to overcome its superiority complex.