Photo exhibition by artist Lucrezia Ceselin, freelance photographer and RUFA graduate in Photography.
Co-curated by Francesca Senatore and Flavia Corsetti Antonini.
The event is realised as part of RUFAlumni, a project that gives former students the opportunity to present their work to the public using the Academy’s spaces.
6 – 17 November 2023 at RUFA Space, Via degli Ausoni 7/A.
“Habitat 1150 was born from the desire to recount how the city of Venice, which had once reached the height of its splendour under the rule of the Serenissima, now finds itself exposed to defacement and corrosion caused by wave motion, mass tourism and the environmental crisis, due to the indifference and anthropocenic actions of human beings”.
The photographic research sheds light on these issues through the accumulation and “archiving” of objects collected on the Venice Lido seafront, which highlight how the sea welcomes them, leading them to a slow but inexorable metamorphosis, making them an integral part of the underwater world in the long run, modifying and preserving them through its action. An ideal visual metaphor to demonstrate the action of brackish water on the fragile and defenceless foundations of the city.
In the same way, Habitat 1150 accommodates within it the diversity of artefacts brought adrift, creating an ‘underwater archive’, a spokesperson for the problems of pollution and anthropocenic actions that over time are morphologically modifying the Venetian lagoon territory, rapidly leading it to its decay.
Habitat 1150 is the term used by ISPRA (Institute for Environmental Protection and Research) to refer to the coastal aquatic environment with salty or brackish, shallow waters, characterised by considerable seasonal variations in salinity (in relation to water inputs, rainfall and evapotranspiration) and depth. This habitat coincides with shallow areas of transitional aquatic environments, characterised by bathymetry such that they do not emerge frequently during ordinary low tides. It is an environment that is affected by the contributions of river freshwaters and the influence of marine waters. In Italy, habitat 1150* covers an area of over 700 km2 and its distribution is widespread in most coastal regions, with a clear prevalence, in terms of surface area, in the lagoons of the Upper Adriatic.
Lucrezia Ceselin’s Habitat 1150 photo project has already been published in several national newspapers, including L’Espresso e il Corriere della Sera.
The ‘HABITAT 1150’ project exhibited at RUFA Space
See photos of the inauguration
