ATLAS OF MEDITERANEAN LIQUIDITY: IMMERSE
a subterranean map to reveal the hidden links between water and stories

Genoa is a coastal city. In the long and narrow morphologically compressed space that runs between the Ligurian Apennines and the sea, water has, since Roman times, been the element that connects its natural borders and every aspect within, be it urban, social, economic, cultural, architectural and infrastructural.

Water is a maritime element that has shaped the development of the city to make it into a port; water is a fluvial element that has shaped the development of the city in the valleys that link to the hinterland. It is a strategic hub between the main navigation routes of the Mediterranean and Europe. In the name of development, rights linked to water have over time been denied in some form or another: the right of public use of the sea was taken away due to the need to operate port machinery, which is increasingly linked to global interests rather than local ones. Bodies of water are forced into rigid levees, canals and underground spillways so as to favor rampant construction on the surface.

Today, the effects of climate change on the fragile coastal landscape, which have visibly worsened, reveal themselves thanks to water. The rise in temperature affects biodiversity and the delicate balance of ecosystems. Gradually rising sea levels along the man-made coastline are juxtaposed with sudden and violent atmospheric phenomena that radically alter more and more the course of flowing water via the flooding of buildings and its impact on the safety of communal life.

If we carefully immerse ourselves in studying the territory beyond the rigid infrastructures that try to rule over it, we discover that water finds its own space to evolve as an element involved in social and ecological forces, both human and non-human, that escapes the control of unnatural forces.

Therefore, the focus of the research for the digital map of Genoa developed for the Atlas of Mediterranean Fluidity is the element of water. It is broken down into the theme of the “immersed,” with a dual meaning of “invisible underground or underwater” due to it being submerged or forced, and of “invisible – unknown or hidden” as a result of it being abandoned or unused.

The map tells the stories of a select number of noteworthy places along fresh and saltwater routes, land and maritime passages, stories made invisible by anthropogenic hyper-infrastructures and immersed in physical conditions that lack knowledge and accessibility.

The mapped places are waterways set within artificial embankments, harbor piers, maritime industrial buildings and residual spaces in the hinterland or along the coast that have unexpectedly become hospitable for small resistant communities, human and non-human, by virtue of their condition of invisibility.

Placing the mouse pointer over a map of the subterranean geography reveals a navigable space in which the distinction between the land and the sea is canceled by the blue of the water, a unitary element on which the user is invited to move guided by the sounds coming from different places. By clicking on a spot where the sound is more intense, it is possible to immerse yourself in the individual stories, each of which is returned through the layering of different narrative forms: textual, visual and aural. In some of these the narratives are autonomous, in others they touch on themes that connect them to other points on the map. At the end of each one documents and external links offer one the chance to get further insights. It’s an invitation to follow the plot of stories already told or use the available materials to create new ones.

The “Immerse” project started in Genoa following the meeting of two research projects from two different multidisciplinary collectives: Zones Portuaires and Corpi Idrici. Both have investigated the phenomenon from a point of view that moves from the sea to the hinterland and vice versa using a transdisciplinary approach method of investigation and restitution that makes use of the hybridization between artistic practice and scientific research.

LINKS

Zones Portuaires

Web

Zones Portuaires / Genoa

Articles

A Creative Approach to the Port-City Relationship: The Case of Zones Portuaires in Genoa

Zones Portuaires: un dispositivo di ricerca-azione sul Porto di Genova

Corpi Idrici

Web

Corpi Idrici

Articles

Corpi idrici on Roots & Routes

Water bodies on AnimaLoci

Charter of rights

Le cose possiedono le cose [IT]

CREDITS

Coordination: Ines Richter / Goethe-Institut Genua
Concept, curation and development: Juan López Cano, Maria Pina Usai
Photography & video: Silvia Badalotti, Gaia Cambiaggi, Anna Positano, Nuvola Ravera
Sound: Stellare, Matteo Manzitti
Text stories: Maria Elena Buslacchi, Anna Daneri
Graphic design: Annalisa Gatto – Nom de Plume
Map: Matteo Casari
Web design and development: Eli Krupitsky