Ravenna, Gea Casolaro's Mare Magnum Nostrum enters the National Museum

From Sept. 23 to Dec. 31, 2021, the Mare Magnum Nostrum project by artist Gea Casolaro (Rome, 1965) reaches its final phase at the National Museum of Ravenna, with a large environmental installation that reproduces the image of the Mediterranean Sea and its coasts, that is, an immersive, blue-colored environment where the public, ideally finding itself at the “center of the sea,” will be able to observe the mosaic of photographs that make it up. The installation, moreover, will become part of the museum’s collections.

The project, curated by Leonardo Regano and promoted by the Regional Directorate of Museums of Emilia-Romagna - National Museum of Ravenna in collaboration with Hulu - Split and qwatz, contemporary art platform, is realized thanks to the support of the Italian Council (8th edition, 2020), a program for the promotion of Italian contemporary art in the world of the General Directorate of Contemporary Creativity of the MiC - Ministry of Culture. The work Mare Magnum Nostrum, created in collaboration with the Academy of Fine Arts of Ravenna, thanks to the contribution of students Manuela Flamigni, Rebecca Fusconi, Lois Galera and Yuyu Zaho, authors of the mural representing the Mediterranean, will present a selection of photographs, among the many received through the website www.maremagnumnostrum.art, chosen by the artist and set up in a display that can be seen at the Museum until December 31, 2021. The work composes a mosaic of different stories and collective points of view to read the history of the Mediterranean from the 20th century to the present. The work was created to stimulate reflection on some central issues of our time, such as ecology, the theme of immigration and the encounter between peoples, but also, in a lighter and more playful way, to investigate, in an almost anthropological sense, what the word “Mediterranean” means in our imagination.

Important in this project is the connection with the place, Ravenna, a city that has always been a symbol of the encounter between peoples and cultures, between East and West. In fact, the Mediterranean Sea is a constant, fundamental element in the history of Ravenna: the Byzantine city has always coexisted with water, and its entire history, from antiquity to the present, is intensely permeated by its relationship with this element. “The sea, since ancient times, has been for this geographical area the bearer of life, of the prosperity that has sprung from trade, of multiethnicity,” says Emanuela Fiori, Director of the National Museum of Ravenna. “It is no coincidence that the port of Ravenna, Classis, was the second port of Augustus’ important fleet, the one destined to cover the eastern Mediterranean. Ravenna was the true Gateway to the East for our country precisely because of its sea. For this city, water has always played a special role: it has meant life, but also death; it has meant industrialization and violence on the landscape, but also the great effort to tame an unhappy nature. And thus to draw from this act new and further possibilities of life.”

Gea Casolaro developed the Mare Magnum Nostrum project precisely from these premises. The Mediterranean Sea is now more than ever a symbol of contact and proximity between cultures. From here comes the opportunity to rethink the concept of identity, and from here we can start to imagine a different and better future. “My project, with the idea of the collective archive, wants to talk about how much we are part of a great existential mare magnum, whose variety enriches and shapes us,” the artist declares. “The sea is the element of fluidity par excellence, from which all species are born, and its constant coming and going of waves makes the waters alive, preventing them from becoming stagnant. Here, in my opinion, the flows of people moving around are like the waves that prevent water, that is, societies, from stagnating.”

Over the course of a year of work, the project has seen the construction of a large digital archive of images of the sea. Thanks to a “call to action” launched last November, to which people from all parts of Europe and North Africa responded, more than 1,500 photographs were collected that tell the story of the sea in all its themes, declinations and suggestions. The uniqueness of the initiative is highlighted by curator Leonardo Regano: “in a difficult moment like this,” he says, “Gea Casolaro has managed to transform a real gamble (what is the idea in the midst of a pandemic to confront a relational and participatory project) into a winning action. The artist has created a network of relationships every day that has become denser and denser that has been fed by memories, by experience, by convivial moments but in which the other side of the coin is also denounced, the indifference and lack of solidarity towards those who sail this sea moved by the hope of a better life. At a time like ours, when environmental and humanitarian issues have tragically ended up in the background, bringing attention back to these issues is necessary for me.”

The exhibition will be accompanied by a book that collects three conversations between the artist and different interlocutors; the first, with Leonardo Regano (curator of the project) and Emanuela Fiori (director of the National Museum of Ravenna); the second, with Michele Colucci (historian), Flore Murard-Yovanovitch (writer and journalist expert on migratory flows), Benedetta Di Loreto (curator and founder of qwatz, contemporary art platform, Rome) on the theme of migration; the third, with Sana Ben Ismaïl (professor of physical oceanography at the Institut National des Sciences et Technologies de la Mer, Tunis) and Nahed Msayleb (Ph.D in sustainable agriculture and director of Tyre Coast Nature Reserve, Lebanon). With these two authors, members of the COMMON (COastal Management and MOnitoring Network for tackling marine litter in Mediterranian sea) project funded by the Eni CBC Med international cooperation program and coordinated by Legambiente, Gea Casolaro will explore environmental issues related to the sea.

Gea Casolaro lives and works between Rome and Paris. Always attentive to the relationship between history and contemporaneity, she often uses photography as a tool for analysis and storytelling. Her work investigates, through video, installation and writing, our relationship with images, current events, society and history. His research aims to activate a permanent dialogue between experiences and people, to expand the capacity for analysis and knowledge of reality through the points of view of others. He has solo and group exhibitions to his credit in national and international museums, including: Mart, Rovereto; Macro, Rome; CNA - Centre National de l’Audiovisuel, Dudelange, Luxembourg; MU.SP.A.C. Experimental Museum of Contemporary Art, L’Aquila; Museo del Tessuto, Prato; AR/GE Kunst, Bolzano; PAV, Parco Arte Vivente, Turin; Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome; MAXXI, Rome; Triennale, Milan; PAN | Palazzo delle Arti, Naples; Moca - Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai; Centro per l’arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato; Palazzo della Farnesina, Rome; Kunsthalle Marcel Duchamp - The Forestay Museum Of Art, Cully; Festival Images, Vevey; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin.

In the photo: Gea Casolaro, Mare Magnum Nostrum.

Ravenna, Gea Casolaro's Mare Magnum Nostrum enters the National Museum

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