Small ecological issues - high impact on our future?

Ombra cattiva

Linda Luise Jasmin Viktoria Piekniewski

Ombra cattiva is a story about Pietro, a young boy living and working at the end of the 19th century in Chioggia in the workshop of his father, a fisherman. Everyday he paints the sails of the boats, each one differs from the other because every owner has its personalised piece done by Pietro. To continue with the final step of the procedure he dives every evening his painting into the saltwater of the lagoon that the superfluous color can rinse off.

One-day, just before he takes the fabric out again, the figure comes suddenly alive and shows him the dangers of the future: Sargassum muticum, a species of algae from Japan that steals the oxygen from the fish. Pietro is the only one to deliver and communicate this message to the inhabitants, from that moment on he transforms the events he has seen into new symbols for the sailboats.

A project made in the course

Lagunando

With the project “Lagunando”, we’ve entered the Venetian lagoon, collecting a multiplicity of testimonies, forgotten stories, hidden details. This material has been re-arranged by each student into a “microhistory”, to narrate some aspects of the precarious balance of the Venetian lagoon. These stories became the narrative structure for a series of children books.
More projects by Linda Luise Jasmin Viktoria Piekniewski