Mare Liberum

Portfolio ongoing since 2000

Mare Liberum was introduced by Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), as the very first concept of International Waters. According to his law after a certain distance away from the shore the sea was considered free to travel and belonged equally to all those sailing on it.

Far from any national or international claim, any commercial use, any kind of transportation, sport or leisure, the sea make us travel if only by looking at it. Our gaze drifts for hours when looking along the horizon, our mind visits thousands of places, hundreds of faces, feelings and moments in a split of a second. Looking at the sea, I feel, we return to the place we call home. There, only there, we are free.

The photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto, whose work is a key reference in this body of work, writes: Water and air. So very commonplace are these substances, they hardly attract attention. Yet, they vouchsafe our very existence.