The project, part of the group show Sensing the Sea, takes origin in an inner image of the sea as an infinite mass of liquidity perpetually striving for its ultimate limits, moved by the "breathing" tides under the influence of the satellite, the Moon.
This natural tendency of the sea to expand is partly due to the enormous pressure exerted by the water masses because of gravity and partly to the ‘capillary force’, meaning the ability of water to penetrate even the smallest cavities in the materials which delimits it, as well as into the objects that it encloses.
If observing the sea from a socio-political-historical viewpoint, it presents a natural space for exchange and communication, constituting a "flickering" multiplicity of potential waterways for navigation. When these two aspects, the natural - the "ways of water" - and the cultural - the "waterways"- converge along a subtle line, it separates the sea from being a means for crossing, turning it into a veritable boundary with often fatal consequences.
For the project I had decided to concentrate on the issue of migration related to the Mediterranean Sea.
But the work took a completely different course than planned when, downhearted by the difficult conditions during the pandemic isolation in winter 2021 and, consequently, unable to carry out the research for the project as had been my intention, I started focusing on the human organ mostly involved in the ongoing pandemic, the lungs.
The exclusive importance of their function for living made me draw a parallel to their role in the way many migrants that are trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea lose their lives in water, hence placing breathing at the core of the question.
As a result I started working on a drawing of a lung, about 4 meters high, knowing that when drowning the lungs are the organ that make the crucial difference between life and death, thus making the act of breathing take on an almost political significance in the continuing debate about Western control policies throughout the Mediterranean sea, and become the emblem of the great waste of lives at sea.

Group show Sensing the Sea
SAK Kunstbygning, Svendborg DK
Curated by Tijana Mišcović.