Offshore, part of the UK City of Culture 2017 festival, is the first joint exhibition between the city's Ferens Art Gallery and Maritime Museum.
Works include a series of poems inspired by the Humber Estuary and a film about the local fishing industry.
One performance features a dancer with a latex costume which changes colour in response to data received from coral at Australia's Great Barrier Reef.
Curator Alice Sharp said: "From Kasia Molga's piece, which links Hull to the Great Barrier Reef through the phenomenon of coral spawning, to Phil Coy's work - which gets to the heart of East Riding fishing communities past and present - the 23 works that make up Offshore are mesmerising and completely unique."
The exhibition runs at the two venues until the end of August.
A new arts exhibition is celebrating Hull's links to the sea.