Eyes on Europe - Shape the Mediterranean

Article publié dans la revue Eyes on Europe sur le projet "Shape the Mediterranean".

Shape the Mediterranean is a project aiming to raise awareness of a Mediterranean identity by combining photography with urban art. A visual logo, reminiscent of the shape of the Mediterranean Sea as the symbol of a sense of belonging, is disseminated in urban landscapes of Mediterranean cities and photographed by project participants.

The logo reproduces the shape of the Mediterranean Sea and is painted black to invert perspective between land and sea, thereby expressing unity. In order for it to remain independent of any written culture the logo is free of inscriptions, and anyone, before recognising it, can imagine it signifying anything. This is one of multiple ways to build a Mediterranean mindset. The logo is depicted on several media – stickers; posters; stencils - and is displayed in urban areas.

The objective is to encourage urban populations to think on a Mediterranean scale by transcending ethnic, religious and national identities. The project aims to promote the Mediterranean as a conceptual framework, a playground for imagination, a source of creativity and a new collective identity.

In our modern urban societies, the city, its streets and its walls are spaces of expression to be discovered. The recourse to urban art is also meant to be an invitation to citizens to reclaim public space. The project is participative. Each participant chooses where to place the logo and takes a photograph. In so doing he shares his visual approach and the choice of a place representative of his city.

The project began in Egypt in September 2004. Within 3 years, Shape the Mediterranean expanded to France, Spain, Italy, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Greece, Lebanon, Palestine and Turkey, including highly symbolic places like the Coliseum, the Acropolis, the Suez Canal, the Strait of Gibraltar and Bethlehem.

More than 50 young people from Europe and the Mediterranean have already contributed to the project. An exhibition bringing together a hundred photographs was held in April 2007 in Casablanca, Morocco, as a part of the 2nd Meeting of the 100 young Euromediterraneans. The final objective of the project is the creation of an itinerant urban art workshop and a book of photographs.

Enrico NATALE, Graduate student in Euro-Mediterranean Studies at the Hassan II University, Morroco