Nostos (the Sea is an Archeology)
by Costanza Santilli

portfolio shortlisted call 'URBANAUTICA INSTITUTE AWARDS 2022', 2022
Category: Anthropology and Territories


The images submitted here are part of a larger body of photographic work executed as part of my research at the University of Brighton. My research is concerned with notions of place, identity and sense of belongings while focusing on contemporary issues of rural landscape and environmental, gendered ideas of nature. After relocating from London to Brighton in the aftermath of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU–and moved by my personal feelings of displacement–I set out on daily walks in the Sussex countryside with the intent to photograph and make sense of my own place in this new landscape. The work engages with the English landscape from an outsider's point of view and is aimed at investigating the dynamics that shape our relationship with place and our sense of belonging—the ways in which we connect and give meaning to (and in turn are shaped by) the places we inhabit—and how creative inquiry and photographic practice can, through new aesthetic and philosophical methodologies, prompt new ways of thinking, imagining and representing rurality as valuable social, cultural and environmental space while reconsidering our relation to nature. Considering rurality today means reconsidering the relationship between man and nature. Philosophical classical tradition defines nature as essence: the fundamental inner character of all things that is common to anything and everything. Later, nature came to be defined as that which is opposed to man and culture, as a wilderness that lives at the edges of civilization, untouched by human hands. Today our heavily cultivated land is not nature in this idealized sense: it is not the pristine wilderness of the American myth and it is not the infinite pictorial landscape, the horizon between earth and sky, of our European romantic tradition. Our contemporary rural landscape speaks not only of the long process of anthropization and objectification through which man has, over time, shaped, excavated and altered the surface of the earth but also of the different ways in which he/she has imagined and given meaning to it, leaving visible and invisible marks on the fabric of the land. If today nature is always and inevitably nature after nature—a nature that has moved into the places of man, always mediated by human action, imagination and affection—then rurality can signify a reminder of a total nature where humans and other-than-human collide. The work consists of a series of relatively small, monochromatic, analogue images hand-printed on traditional silver-halide film and created in response to walking on the ancient paths of the South Downs—in proximity to the places in which I live—and organised in a series of unpopulated landscapes that bear the traces of a long history of human presence. Together these images form a collection of fragments of nature that, locating the rural within a local landscape and my direct and particular (personal and historical) connection with it, serves to combine individual and collective memory, interior and social spaces.


share this page
   also from URBANAUTICA INSTITUTE AWARDS 2022
portfolio
Aniconic Puglia
Alessandro Cirillo
portfolio
The System of Objects
Su Kui
portfolio
Where The Valley Sings
Austin Quintana
portfolio
Irrational
Spiros Zervoudakis
portfolio
Animalia
Barron Bixler
portfolio
Shikoku No Seijaku (Shikoku Silence)
Damien Drew
portfolio
riverrun
Manuela Naddeo
portfolio
Alma foi embora, Navio foi embora
Carlos Barradas
portfolio
Description Without Place: Searching for Centralia
Michael Serra
portfolio
COMPLEX
Artur Pławski
portfolio
What Still Remained
Seth Berry
portfolio
Atmos
Gabriel Orlowski
portfolio
Academy
Lyubov Yarinich
portfolio
DOMINIO
Onnis Luque
portfolio
26 French Bus Stops
Alex Currie
portfolio
What Has Been Will Be Again
Jared Ragland
portfolio
Ponente, sull’Aurelia
Mattia Tettoni
portfolio
HEADING WEST
Eleni Mouzakiti
portfolio
The Dream
Fabio D’Arsiè
portfolio
The Absence and Presence of the Berlin Wall
Gesche Würfel
portfolio
Life and Death in the woods
Daniele Molajoli & Margherita Nuti
portfolio
CRITICAL LANDSCAPES//FEAR//LOVE
Irina Vosgerau
portfolio
Remnants of Dominion
Drew Waters
portfolio
Memory is in the surface of landscape
Marcello Maranzan
portfolio
Memories of stones
Francesca Spedalieri
portfolio
Common places
Cédric Dasesson
portfolio
Minnelied
Margrieta Jeltema
portfolio
A Place to Live
Sonia Lenzi
portfolio
Le forme del tempo. Archeologia di memoria familiare
Chiara Solimene
portfolio
Seawatching
Loretta Ayeroff
portfolio
Neither Here Nor There
Angela Crosti
portfolio
Tuscia
Diego Sartorio
portfolio
Locked by love
Kristina Lindfors
portfolio
La Mancha Urbana
Valentino Bellini
portfolio
Finalmente posso andare
Cinzia Laliscia
portfolio
Manicula
Chiara Pavolucci
portfolio
Steel
Pietro Grossi
portfolio
The anthropocene's aesthetics
Pierre-Romain Guedj
portfolio
Copper Tales
Lisa Mazenauer
portfolio
Between Two Lakes
Alexander Sharr
portfolio
Of Water and Stone
Maryna Shtanko
portfolio
Mirage Hotel
Francesco Villa
portfolio
Lapilli
Sara Munari
portfolio
Architecture of Eternity
Quang Lam
portfolio
Undert the fleece
Christian Velcich
portfolio
Imbros
Çağrı Ertem
portfolio
Own your piece of the sky
Jesper Boot
portfolio
I Heard the North Wind Call Your Name
Ian White
portfolio
The Loneliest Highway
William Mark Sommer
portfolio
Searching for
Alessandro Mallamaci
portfolio
All Things Laid Dormant
Benedetta Casagrande
portfolio
ORBITE
Rafa Jacinto
portfolio
CACO3
Adriano Nicoletti
portfolio
Twenty Years Old
Samy Brillaud
portfolio
The Fall of Icarus
Manuel Cosentino
portfolio
Grand Hotel Carezza
Ilaria Di Biagio
portfolio
Hinterland
Ryan Parker
portfolio
The Dialogue of the Dogs
Richard Page
portfolio
Born and Raised
Vlad Bulenkov
portfolio
United by what separates
Alessandro Cristofoletti
portfolio
Eat More Chips
Danilo Murru
portfolio
Le Lettere di Titti e Franco
Matteo Angelini
portfolio
Desert Stars
Andrea Pugiotto
portfolio
PCCB
Matteo Capone
portfolio
Cratere
Pietro Motisi
portfolio
EIRA (Threshing Floor)
Nelson Miranda
portfolio
Se non fosse amaro
Bartolomeo Rossi
portfolio
Venir Voir
Paul Montagnon
portfolio
Wampis
Filippo Taddei
portfolio
Valle
Cristian Ordóñez
portfolio
Coast Lands
Eduardo Sousa Ribeiro
portfolio
The New Gold
Daniele Dainelli
portfolio
I used to be a mountain (a 'K to H' of the EU)
Jack Davies
portfolio
Meadow
Nicholas Pollack
portfolio
R2 (2020 - ongoing)
Dominika Jackuliakova
portfolio
Quicker than Coal Ash
Will Warasila
portfolio
One dimensional city with inhabitants
Cristiano Buffa
portfolio
Intimate Paths
Kosmas Iliadis
portfolio
THE SELF-CITY
Michał Jakubowicz
portfolio
Amaraménte
Giuseppe Marano
portfolio
This Landscape?
Anna Paola Guerra
portfolio
Topografia meridiana
Francesco Conti
portfolio
A Conventional Venice
Francesco Lupò
portfolio
The Zone
Richard Wells
portfolio
MADRE
Marisol Mendez
portfolio
Sink Flow
Fernando Brito
portfolio
Come un fiore senza terra
Greta Valente
portfolio
The Place Lives
Guglielmo Cherchi
portfolio
#3016
Collettivo Order#10362 Elisa Bianchi Testoni, Marco Brioni, Umberto Righi
portfolio
ARIDA
David de Flores
portfolio
Sense of Space - Preposition of Place
Masixole Ncevu
portfolio
The Voice – Vouaïe
Aaron Yeandle
portfolio
Altari
Paolo Covino
portfolio
Abracadabra
Stefano Ferrando
portfolio
ASYMPTOTE: a fact-less survey of Jubilee Grove
Nigel Baldacchino
portfolio
Double Roses
Louise Honée
portfolio
A vecchia ca tenia cient'anni nun vulia murì picché ancora s'avia m'barà


portfolio
Nostos (The Vessel)
Vassilis Triantis
portfolio
Di là da l'aghe
Abel Picogna
portfolio
Conquering Mountains – A Fiction about Childhood and Imagination
Marcel Rauschkolb
portfolio
Nowa Huta : A perfect city for the working classes
Zisis Kardianos
portfolio
Precarity and Shore
Michael Zuhorski
portfolio
Nel paese dei gigli selvatici
Francesca Loprieno
portfolio
Baptized Island
Francesca Cugno
portfolio
Angels Point
Adam Ianniello
portfolio
El Futuro
Mattia Micheli
portfolio
Come costruire un castello di carte
Federica Mambrini
portfolio
Wales: The Landscape Project
Chloe (Map6Collective) Lelliott
portfolio
Wild at heart
Hanne Lamon
portfolio
Mattoni sparsi (Scattered bricks)
Giancarlo Pradelli
portfolio
If A Tree Falls In A Forest
Dmytro Prutkin
portfolio
Compound Effect
Thiemo Kloss
portfolio
You are not alone
Giacomo Arrigo
portfolio
SALTROAD
Verena Hägler
portfolio
VENA
Pierclaudio Duranti
portfolio
Treaty of Tamed Materials
José Luis Arroyo-Robles
portfolio
The Bakkal Adem Sokak Theater in Üsküdar
Gisela Weimann
portfolio
The Seventh Bardo
Beth Lilly
portfolio
Vain
Sebastian Arriagada
portfolio
Riturné
Mauro Curti
portfolio
Saeta. Stones Dialogue.
Curro Rodriguez Sanchez
portfolio
Quadraria
Jonathan Pourchet
portfolio
Electric Avenue
Bart Nelissen
portfolio
The Dormitories
Conner Gordon
portfolio
Bagnoli industriale. I segni di un passato


portfolio
Presente Infinito
Armando Perna
portfolio
A brief history of sight
Antoine Le Roux
portfolio
TO THE RESCUE – An architecture of restoration
Mireille Schellhorn
portfolio
Khozyain ( Host)
Mircea Sorin Albutiu
portfolio
Proposal for a city
Johann Husser
portfolio
What Remains
Krista Svalbonas
portfolio
After Inferno
Diego Sartorio
portfolio
SPONDE
Luís Aniceto
portfolio
VESTIGES
Yersin Jean-Marc
portfolio
Vanished
Massimo Crivellari
portfolio
A richer dust concealed
Charlie Blackledge
portfolio
Spaarndammermeubels


portfolio
The Fault Zone
Leon Jérémie
portfolio
Thirteen Hours to Fall
Margaret LeJeune
portfolio
Le Petit Souffle
Ciro Battiloro
portfolio
Honeycut Hollow
Lisa Barlow
portfolio
Archèo
Tommaso Vitiello
portfolio
The Distance Is Real
Shahrzad Darafsheh
portfolio
Where do I go when I sleep
Silvia Mangosio
portfolio
L'Oasi
Francesco Coccoli
portfolio
Sukkahs
Tommaso Sacconi
portfolio
New Intimacies
Louis Chavez
portfolio
There Round the Corner in the Deep
Katya Selezneva
portfolio
The name we hold
Luca Iovino
portfolio
The Valley of the Mills
Umberto Verdoliva
portfolio
Wuthering Fires / Fuochi Erranti
Lorenzo Zoppolato
portfolio
Ramonika
Valentina Iaccarino
portfolio
Your home is still there
Florence Cuschieri
portfolio
STAL - Vernacular Animal Sheds
Servaas Van Belle
portfolio
Ecce Homo
Nicola Bertellotti
portfolio
A Lair
Tomasz Kawecki
portfolio
Karst
Delort Gaëlle
portfolio
Tre cose sbagliate
Alessandro Truffa
portfolio
工作 gōng zuò. Una storia del nord-est
Giovanni Isetta
portfolio
Borderland
Filippo Barbero
portfolio
Valserine
Aurélie Monnier
portfolio
Tokyo transient
Giovanni Antignano
portfolio
"West Safari"
Francesco Aglieri Rinella
portfolio
Where Fireflies Unfold
Oskar Alvarado
call
URBANAUTICA INSTITUTE AWARDS 2022
portfolio
Gerace, a living stone
Enrico Perassi