COMMON MEADOW
by Oda Gaard Hansen
“as a witness
to the kindness of your soul”
(English translation)
- From “Konkylie” by Olav H. Hauge
Explorations of the ports of Trieste, Koper, and Rijeka revealed how the ports, with their outward closed attitudes, construction, and port-related activities, have in various ways created a separation from the sea for their respective cities. The border between Slovenia and Croatia in the Gulf of Piran is disputed. From Marine Biology Station in Piran, we understood that there is insufficient collaboration and a lack of shared knowledge on ecological challenges between Slovenia and Croatia, who share the gulf.
How can borders can be read and understood, and how could the interplay between ecology and politics in bordering processes either conflict or complement one another?
How can an extended understanding of borders be a tool for collaboration and a strategy for more sustainable management of shared spaces?
“And when you are no more,
your house
will be left
as a witness
to the kindness of your soul”
(English translation)
- From “Konkylie” by Olav H. Haug
your house
will be left
as a witness
to the kindness of your soul”
(English translation)
- From “Konkylie” by Olav H. Haug
“Og når du ikkje er meir,
skal huset
stå att
og vitna
um di sjels venleik”
Olav H. Hauge
skal huset
stå att
og vitna
um di sjels venleik”
Olav H. Hauge
Our contemporary cartography will bear witness to the future of how we interpreted our responsibilities and whether we viewed the world with other forms of life than our own in mind.
I have used cartography as a tool to explore the theme of borders, but also as a medium to map my own process and understanding, inspired by both traditional cartography and more radical experiments by Design Earth and Perry Kulper.
In his text "Radical Cartography," Philippe Rekacewicz asks who has the right to create maps?
Through cartography focusing on an ecological perspective and the seagrass species “Posidonia Oceanica” in the North Adriatic, I have gained a better understanding of how human activities–as well as human-set borders for the aspects of nature we wish to protect–affect natural boundaries for growth and biodiversity.
“To sense this world of waters known to the creatures of the
sea we must shed our human perceptions of length and breadth
and time and space, and enter vicariously into a universe of
all-pervading water. For to the sea’s children nothing is so important
as the fluidity of their world.”
- From “Undersea” by Rachel Carson
Can we land dwellers, set maritime borders without understanding the interconnectedness and premises of ecosystems? Do we have the right to set maritime borders at all?
My maps aim to expand the way borders are drawn and understood, and how responsibility of the shared sea is distributed between Croatia, Slovenia, and Italy by letting seagrass–a fundamentally important factor for life in the Adriatic –determine new borders. The regression of seagrass calls for ecological borders to take precedence.
Scars in the seabed from port activities including anchoring around the industrial ports in Trieste, Monfalcone, and Koper are among the greatest influences on the regression of seagrass and therefore pose a major threat. Through considering the natural growth conditions of seagrass, a new border for an anchoring-, and trawling-free zone is defined.
The focus shifts to a shared ambition with a need for international collaboration: the preservation and monitoring of seagrass. Posidonia Oceanica becomes the narrator of a sustainable, transnational and ecologically-fbased border, drawn on behalf of life both above and below the ocean surface.
