Mekhala Dave is a lawyer & art academic based in Vienna. She is the ocean law and policy analyst/legal researcher at the TBA21–Academy and a doctoral researcher at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. In her past and current work of legal practice and packaged in the fabric of her PhD research, she feels for a social turn in artistic practices to investigate ‘encounters’ located across knowledge spheres and global south communities in the interfaces of activism and in shaping ocean policy. From her lived experiences across borders, she draws inspiration and spiritual guidance from water to the questions of historicity and the search for emerging ‘new’ relations of identity and belonging.
