The notion of the ocean as a blank expanse unaffected by human culture and urbanization does not align with reality — with the development of legal mechanisms and technologies for governing, monitoring, traversing, and exploiting marine spaces, the world’s seas have become increasingly interconnected with human activities. Based on this assumption, the artistic research project Komuna Maro (Common Sea in Esperanto) investigates the networks of marine communities, technologies, and infrastructures of the North Adriatic. The project’s objectives are to uncover hidden power dynamics, create new “cartographies,” and present alternative narratives for the region. The core project team from the Institute of Contemporary Art accompanied by a group of selected artists, follow various human and nonhuman actors living at, near, in, and with the Adriatic Sea to document different experiences and give voice to diverse forms of knowledge about this shared habitat. Simultaneously, the researchers engage with more distant — scientific, geopolitical, and legal — discourses and complex spatial data. In the form of open discussions and workshops, multilingual pamphlets, radio broadcasts, performative traveling exhibitions, and collaborative digital maps, these different views “from below” and “from above” connect and overlap to provide an alternative, multifaceted, transnational, and multimedia cartography of the North Adriatic.
In terms of methodology, the analytical phase of the project intertwines experimental geographic and anthropological research with collaborative artistic practice. This phase is followed by a speculative exploration of possible future scenarios, including considerations about alternative legislation for the North Adriatic region, novel forms of cultivating ocean resources, and ideas for hacking, repurposing, and commoning existing maritime technologies. The distinctiveness of the project lies in its utilization of artistic research as a means to orchestrate and document a collective and transdisciplinary process of remapping and reimagining a shared marine space — our Common Sea.
