Since 2019, the international project “Sea-centric Forms of Socially Engaged Art (SEA): Critical Re-Imagination of Intercultural Flow in the Kuroshio Current” has attempted to instill interdisciplinary art collaboration by artists, researchers, and children from different countries to bring together people’s stories about the ocean. The purpose of this paper is to explore how the project, by introducing participatory art creation, has facilitated the “building of real relationships,” whether tangible or intangible, as well as cross-cultural "community empathy" that has transformed into care for the marine environment. This paper observes and analyses the implementation process of this sea-centered socially engaged art project. It critically reflects on the extent to which the project not simply applies views put forward by European and American scholars, but also offers a uniquely important contribution within its own context. Through the experience of real relationship induced by socially-engaged art practice, the project highlights the inter-Asian cultural flow as well as creates the unique power for artistic productions, modes of communication and transmission to be passed on across generations.