Elena Bellantoni's 'Ho annegato il mare' and the Paradox of Drowning the Sea

In an interview with Neve Mazzoleni, Italian artist Elena Bellantoni discusses her participatory performance 'Ho annegato il mare' (I Drowned the Sea), created for Manifesta 12 in Palermo. The work features a 2.8-meter-high mobile watchtower that she dragged along Palermo's southern coastline, inviting residents to climb and share their perspectives on the sea, which has been obscured by rampant cementification—a legacy of the 'Sacco di Palermo' under the administrations of Vito Ciancimino and Salvo Lima. Bellantoni describes the tower as a 'contemporary pulpit' for exchange and dialogue. The performance is documented in black-and-white video, a deliberate choice referencing crime news and the films of Ciprì and Maresco, avoiding the city's seductive colors. The title plays on the paradox of drowning the sea, a provocation to confront what one wishes to erase. Bellantoni's practice, influenced by phenomenology and Lacanian language theory, merges the personal and political. She cites Buster Keaton's melancholic comedy and Pasolini's 'fireflies' as inspirations. The work also engages with the memory of anti-mafia activist Pio La Torre, assassinated in 1982, and includes an interview with Fiammetta Borsellino. Bellantoni's residency at Ecomuseo Mare Memoria Viva (MMV) grounded the project in local history. She describes her current phase as one of simplification, moving toward 'dry' images that distill territorial readings.