Fish In A Kettle — Lab Rats

It’s 2050.

The party has already started.

TIDAL ArtS combines the power of art and science to inspire action for our ocean and waters.

Fish in a Kettle is a surreal immersive performance set inside a house party, hosted by the Ocean themselves.

Guided into the party by an oracle called Ringo, audiences move freely through different spaces, choosing who to follow and which fragments of the future to uncover. They encounter three different facets of the Ocean: Coral, the eternal Mother; Penelope, a fading and unstable beauty; and Sal, a party-loving club kid dancing at the end of the world.

Moving between probable, dystopian and utopian futures, Fish in a Kettle floats between performance, scientific research, movement, and ecological imagination. Rather than asking audiences to sit back and watch, the work invites them inside: to get close, make choices and experience different versions of the same night.

The piece was generously funded by Tidal Arts and developed in collaboration with marine scientist Dr Marta Payo Payo from the National Oceanography Centre, with research into coastal change, numerical modelling and nature-based coastal defences feeding into the world of the show.

Fish in a Kettle premiered at Fabric Studios @ Scale, Liverpool, in May 2026, before travelling to Sommerwerft Festival in Frankfurt, Germany, in August 2026, where the work was reimagined for an outdoor festival setting.

We are continuing to develop Fish in a Kettle and are interested in new partnerships, festivals and spaces where the party might surface next.

One night. One party. One ocean.
The party keeps going.