Sea blindness

https://www.neme.org/projects/a-sea-change/sea-blindness

Over the years, researchers, historians and creatives have employed the term ‘sea blindness’ to depict humankind’s inability to identify and understand certain issues related to our seas and oceans, such as environmental protection, migration flows or global logistics and their impact on coastal ecosystems. Sea Blindness is caused by a wide array of factors such as: negligence, ignorance, or a lack of interest to address these issues. We can find the general lack of interest and perspective towards problems at sea investigated in Freightened: The Real Price of Shipping, a 2016 produced documentary by the French director Denis Delestrac which exposes the environmental and human costs of marine transport, a powerful and unregulated industry that moves millions of dollars and yet remains largely unknown to most people.

For the exhibition at the NeMe Arts Centre, ‘sea blindness’ is used to shed light on the major geopolitical, ecological, and humanitarian phenomena that unfold in the Mediterranean basin but remain shielded from public scrutiny for a variety of reasons. Many human interventions in the Mediterranean are commonly disregarded, as in the cases of submarine communication cables, the shipping industry and other critical infrastructures because of their lack of visibility or because they concern geopolitical relations, and as such seem too abstract or remote. Other aspects, however, have to contend with the indifference of the already oversaturated attention span of the general public, as it often happens with matters related to environmental degradation and migration.

The Mediterranean geopolitical, social and environmental landscape has undergone significant changes throughout the years. The continuous flow of people, goods and ideas intersecting in this part of the world, not only reminds us of its historical and strategic importance, but also its complexity and fragility due to different political regimes, religions and cultural heritages, economic resources, and the ongoing geopolitically induced crisis situations. It does not come as a surprise that a great number of the world’s conflicts – humanitarian, environmental, energy, security, and geopolitical dominance, originate in and around the Mediterranean basin.

Global capitalism is one of the major factors that has profoundly transformed the world’s oceans and seas. It has also disrupted our system of values and the way we relate to the natural world, which is, paradoxically, the main source of our global commodities. As valuable as the Mediterranean Sea is, as an essential source of food and exceptional marine biodiversity, and a critical transportation route for almost everything we consume, many citizens, and by extension many of their governments, are generally unaware of their dependence on it. In fact, current modes of production and distribution result in a situation where people are as oblivious to the uniqueness of the seas as they are to sectors like agriculture, until they are made aware of the importance of these ecosystems for their lives, or until they experience the absence of the commodities these ecosystems provide. This shows the kind of “sea blindness” our society experiences.

Sea blindness comes in many forms. One being Europe’s flagrant inaction to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the Mediterranean caused by wars in North Africa and the Middle East. As we write in early August 2023, we are faced with a growing number of cases. One of the most recent episodes happened in June 2023 inside the Greek Search and Rescue Region (SAR), where a boat transferring hundreds of migrants sank near the coast of Pylos. A joint investigation between the research group Forensis, The Guardian, German public broadcaster ARD, and Greek non-profit organisation Solomon revealed “inconsistencies in the Hellenic Coast Guard’s (HCG) account and indicates that over 600 people drowned as a result of actions taken by the HCG.” ^{1 The Pylos Shipwreck investigation, 2023.} According to this investigation, there also “appears to have been a series of efforts by the HCG to distort and manipulate evidence related to the incident and silence witness accounts.”

A few months earlier, in February 2023, there was another tragedy, this time off the coast of Italy’s Calabria region, which claimed the lives of at least 94 individuals, many of them children. These, ongoing, humanitarian disasters take place on the backdrop of a series of measures and agreements adopted by the EU and individual European countries to curb immigration from Africa and the East. They range from Italy’s nationalist government actively sabotaging the work of sea rescue charities to the EU striking “strategic partnership” deals with Turkey and Tunisia that make it increasingly difficult for people to reach and settle in Europe.

The European practices of non-assistance turn the Mediterranean into both, a burial site where thousands of desperate individuals from Africa and Asia disappear, and a liquid frontier that discourages the movement of human beings from the South to the North. This discrimination of who has the right to travel and set foot on a territory finds uncomfortable echoes in the history of colonialism in the Mediterranean region. Imperialism was not the only motive for European colonists. The desire to explore, to spread “civilisation” and impose a Western perception of the Mediterranean also resulted in occupation, forced modernisations and other exercises in supremacy.

Another form of sea blindness refers to topics related to surveillance and digital sovereignty concealed under the surface of the Mediterranean Sea. Because of its key position between Africa, the Middle East, and Europe, the network of fibre optic cable hubs and undersea sensors distributed around the basin enables digital connectivity for millions of people and supports the economies of three continents. The submarine infrastructure also plays a critical role in Europe’s right and ability to control its own digital data. Its importance for regional security is such that the EU fears that it could be sabotaged ^{2 "Security threats to undersea communications cables and infrastructure – consequences for the EU," June 2022, europarl.europa.eu/RegData… )702557_EN.pdf, 2023.} by foreign intelligence agencies or non-governmental actors as part of what is sometimes called “hybrid warfare tactics.” ^{3 "What the internet looks like: Underwater cables in the Middle East," Middle East Eye middleeasteye.net/news… e-east.}

An important aspect that is also little known, or ignored by many people is the relationship between the land and the sea, and how land processes affect the ocean and seas. For example, this interaction includes “the examination of the nutrient load and eutrophication, the connection of cables or the transmission of energy to the national energy network, and connections between land and sea transport, ports, cities and towns and the recreational use of the coastal area.” ^{4 Land–sea interaction.} It has already been proven that intensive farming and the use of pesticides and fertilisers poison fresh water, and marine ecosystems. It also causes soil erosion and reduces soil utility, productivity and biodiversity. There are many studies advocating for the importance of sustainable practices and biodiversity for food security, and to preserve critical rural and coastal habitats. ^{5 Sustainable Agriculture for Biodiversity. Biodiversity for Sustainable Agriculture.} Preserving (and growing) varieties of grains is crucial if we want to prepare for the repercussions of the climate crisis. “In the future, plant breeders might need to tap the traits from one variety to make another more resilient to warmer, stormier, or drier weather, or to save a prized variety from disease.” ^{6 Why we need small farms.}

With more than 17,000 marine species, 20 to 30% of which are endemic, the Mediterranean basin is a biodiversity hotspot. ^{7 Biological diversity in the Mediterranean.} Unfortunately, many of these species are considered vulnerable, endangered or threatened with extinction. Pollution, droughts, invasive species, marine heat waves, habitat degradation and poor management of natural resources are important contributors to the decline of biodiversity in the whole region. While anthropisation and mass tourism are putting additional stress on coastal areas, life in the high sea is disrupted by the growing concentration of noisy and highly polluting shipping and cruise traffic. Alongside plastics and industrial contamination, moving ships have changed the chemical and physical composition of the sea as evidenced in ocean acidification, depleting oxygen levels and warming waters. What was once considered a landmark in transport and technological innovation, is increasingly causing harm to the coastal and marine ecosystems.

The recent approval of the world’s first international high seas treaty brings hope among all of the distressing news coming from the Mediterranean. The new agreement adopted by the UN’s 193 Member States in June 2023 “contains 75 articles that aim at protecting, caring for, and ensuring the responsible use of the marine environment, maintaining the integrity of ocean ecosystems, and conserving the inherent value of marine biological diversity.” ^{8 Beyond borders: Why new 'high seas' treaty is critical for the world.} The UN High Seas Treaty, which has been approved after twenty years of consultations and two weeks of talks, shows the multilateral political dialogue, cooperation and collaboration efforts taken by all State Members to forge a common wave of conservation and sustainability in the high seas beyond national boundaries and to accelerate climate ambition towards a more sustainable, resilient and equitable future.

Can we imagine the Mediterranean as a shared space, valued and protected by all the cultures that live around and beyond it? Can we find new ways to relate to the Mediterranean Sea that do not rely solely on capital, power struggles, and geopolitical dominance but on a healthy and sensible balance between protection of the sea and sustainable marine economies? Could the sea become a collective, cross-border project that takes into account the wellbeing and right to exist of all forms of life, humans and non-humans, microbial and vegetal?

The Sea Blindness exhibition and accompanying programme of events aim to help us rethink how we relate to the Mediterranean sea, how the relations and cooperation between the Northern and the Southern, Eastern, and Western borders of the basin unfold, as well as the influential role the region plays in world’s geopolitics and in securing economic, environmental, and social prosperity.

Artistic and research engagements with these topics throw light on both collective concerns and political responses to challenges arising in the Mediterranean basin. Through their work, the participating artists and scholars, explore the infrastructures, phenomena, tensions and relationships unfolding in and around the Mediterranean, revealing on one hand, the complex mechanisms of humans, food and material flows taking place in the Mediterranean Sea, and their impact at a social, political and environmental level, and on the other hand, the importance of sea protection and conservation for social, economic and environmental prosperity. The exhibition also presented artists who propose critical, speculative and sometimes satirical approaches to understanding the growing effect technology has on political and territorial realities, the geopolitical and mass-surveillance issues surrounding the long-standing practice of undersea cabling in the Mediterranean, as well as poetic proposals to reimagine our relationship with marine ecosystems.

Carmen Salas and Régine Debatty (Project curators)

The artists, speakers and filmmakers who participated in Sea Blindness included: Futurefarmers with Ignacio Chapela & Alfonso Borrogán, Forensic Oceanography, Giovanna Reder (Border Forensics), Moritz Frischkorn, César Escudero Andaluz, Heba Y. Amin, Ingo Niermann & Eduardo Navarro, Ruba Salameh, Charalampos Theopemptou, Hypercomf, Jafra Abu Zoulouf, Dr. Manfred A. Lange, Denis Delestrac, Ana Serna & Paula Iglesias, and Corina Schwingruber Ilić.

The project consisted of an exhibition, a guded tour of the exhibition, a seminar, an artist talk, a curators talk, a documentary screening, video screenings, and a residency for Régine Debatty and Carmen Salas.

Notes

1. The Pylos Shipwreck investigation, 2023. ⇧
2. "Security threats to undersea communications cables and infrastructure – consequences for the EU," June 2022, europarl.europa.eu/RegData… )702557_EN.pdf, 2023. ⇧
3. "What the internet looks like: Underwater cables in the Middle East," Middle East Eye middleeasteye.net/news… e-east. ⇧
4. Land–sea interaction. ⇧
5. Sustainable Agriculture for Biodiversity. Biodiversity for Sustainable Agriculture. ⇧
6. Why we need small farms. ⇧
7. Biological diversity in the Mediterranean. ⇧
8. Beyond borders: Why new 'high seas' treaty is critical for the world. ⇧

This project has been funded with the support from the European Commission. This communication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.