February 2025 will see the launch of the  Collaboratorium for Socio-Environmental Analysis of the Ocean (CO-SEA), an innovative research project that aims to develop a specific, reproducible and scalable methodology for studying the relationship between society and the ocean, focusing on the main socio-environmental issues affecting coastal waters. The research is led by Chiara Certomà, in collaboration with research fellows Caterina Pozzobon and Luca Bertocci, in partnership with Federico Fornaro, director of the British independent video documentation company Raw-News, and with the collaboration of underwater photographer Giuseppe Lupinacci.
 

The pilot experiment will focus on the waters of the Gulf of Anzio, Lazio, Italy, and will take place over 11 months, from February to December. In collaboration with institutions and the local community, national and international experts in social and environmental sciences, the research team will document the most critical environmental emergencies, including plastic pollution, through interviews with key actors in the area, field analyses, socio-geographical elaborations and video-photographic reportages in the open sea and underwater. The aim is to explore how the link between societies and the sea is constructed in order to tackle environmental problems, reinterpreting the sense of common belonging to the ocean. In particular, the research will explore how marine communities perceive and experience the changing oceans invaded by marine plastic pollution.

Please read the Italian version of this page for more information.