Blue Kinships, Visual documentation for Ocean research.

A film by Federico Fornaro and Giuseppe Lupinacci, Premiered at SiciliAmbiente Film Festival, San Vito Lo Capo( Palermo) on 17 July 2025.

SiciliAmbiente is an international film festival showcasing fiction features, documentaries, short films, and animated works centered on the environment, sustainability, and human rights. The Festival has received the Culture in Green award from the Buygreen Forum multiple times, recognizing it as Italy’s top green cultural initiatives.

Prior to the screening, the documentary was introduced by Festival Director Antonio Bellia, who engaged in a discussion with Dr. Chiara Certomà (MEMOTEF Department, Sapienza University of Rome), film director Federico Fornaro, and photographer Giuseppe Lupinacci (Raw‑News Visual Production Agency), as part of the CO > SEA Collaboratorium for the Socio‑Environmental Analysis of the Ocean.

Produced by Raw-News Video Production Agency, the video reportage is directed by Federico Fornaro and filmed by Federico Fornaro and Giuseppe Lupinacci.

“Blue Kinships. Documenting Ocean Relationships” showcases how visual storytelling contributes to a deeper understanding of the ocean-society relationship. This thought-provoking exploration delves into the essence of visual research for marine social geography and the power of participatory, engaged social research on the ocean.

The reportage serves as an exclusive teaser for the upcoming collective book “Blue Kinships. An Exploration of Society & the Ocean” (edited by Chiara Certomà, published by Palgrave MacMillan, New York, 2025), a publication within the Horizon Europe project “PartArt4OW – Participatory Art for Society Engagement with Ocean and Water”. It presents the emergent movement of ideas and practices interpreting the ocean as a conceptual and physical space where ever-evolving environmental and socio-cultural entanglements are generating new complex, heterogeneous and mutable ecological systems. The research argues that addressing the challenge of tightening the link between society and the ocean cannot be achieved by technological solutions alone, but requires a multidisciplinary understanding of the ocean’s influence on the human, non-human and more-than-human society. By showcasing theoretical insights, methodological innovations, and real-world case studies, the book puts the ocean at the heart of global health and fosters the emerging field of marine social geography.

The video was released by the CO>SEA research group, hosted at Sapienza University of Rome,Memotef Department and supported by the EU Citizen Science Prize 2024 – Diversity & Collaboration Award.

It was presented in the 3rd Annual Mission Ocean and Waters Forum on 4 March 4, 2025 (https://crowdusg.net/2025/02/18/partart4ow-european-ocean-days/), part of a series of related events including the European Ocean Days 2025 in the frame of the Mission Ocean.

Credits and Accessibility

Information:

• Chiara Certomà – chiara.certoma@uniroma1.it

• Federico Fornaro – federico.fornaro@raw-news.net

• Info: https://crowdusg.net/2025/04/29/blue-kinshipspartart4owinstitut-francais/

• CO>SEA research diary: https://crowdusg.net/cosea/

• PartArt4OW project: https://partart4ow.eu/