Chairs: Enrico Squarcina, Erica Neri, Stefania Benetti, Giovanni Modaffari (University of Milano-Bicocca)

Type: hybrid

This session aims to collect contributions that reflect on the role of the arts and visual tools in constructing and transmitting the image of the sea and the relationship between human beings and marine spaces. As a matter of fact, Predrag Matvejevic affirms we do not discover the sea by ourselves and we do not only look at it with our eyes. We also see it as others have looked at it, in the images and stories they have left us: we come to know it and recognise it at the same time (2006). Painting, cinema, photography, cartoons, illustrations from the popular press, cartographies, street art, satirical comics, textbooks, documentaries, TV series, music video clips, all contribute to the geopolitical, environmental, and imaginary construction of our idea of the sea. In an era dominated by the visual and characterized by the hegemony of social media, these materials are of particular interest, creating different seascapes that can assume both positive and negative connotations.

Keywords: seascape, visual geography, ecocriticism, popular geopolitics, critical didactics

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