Shore leaves is a project by Paolo Patelli (associate reader within the Readership “Places and Traces”, Giulio Squillacciotti (Van Eyck Academie) and Giuditta Vendrame (MA Social Design alumna).
Delving into the invisibility of labor under automation, Shore Leaves offers an entry point to the everyday world of seafarers, when the pace of logistical handling slows down. The video documentation was produced during fieldwork aboard bulk carrier and container cargo ships harbored for loading and unloading in the ports of Rotterdam and Venice, and at the seafarers organizations that in both cities provide practical assistance and support to seafarers of all nationalities. Focusing on the spaces and gestures of this waiting time, the project confronts a reality that is generally concealed. Shore leaves are vital for the health and wellbeing of seafarers and they represent the short moments when sailors can connect with their families and friends. Industry demands for time saving procedures, advanced through port automation, and increased security measures ashore, put this right under pressure. The machinic efficiency in the circulation of the goods on which our economies are highly dependent has a counterpart: while human presence and labor are still indispensable and of infrastructural importance, human bodies strive to adapt to remodeled times and spaces and descend further beneath a threshold of visibility
Shore leaves will be on view from the 26th of May until the 25th of November at Giardini.
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