The Sailing Lab arrives in Anzio for the first stop of its Mediterranean crossing, and finds a harbour already transformed by art, science, and community action.
Anzio, Italy — 20 June 2026
The PartArt4OW Sailing Lab's Mediterranean journey began in the most fitting way possible, surrounded by art made from the sea's own castoffs. On 20 June, the research vessel crossed the Gulf from Nettuno Marina to reach the fishermen harbour Molo Innocenziano in Anzio, where the main event of the PartArt4OW Participatory Art Initiative "Anzio R.I.S.E. for the Ocean" was in full swing. The boat docked just thirty metres from the festival area, close enough to smell the salt, hear the conversations, and step directly into the work.
Escaping from polystyrene pollution of the sea is no longer possible, and Anzio R.I.S.E. refuses to look away. The first Participatory Art Initiative on the Sailing Lab's route, the festival invited the public to engage with large-scale installations crafted from phased-out EPS fish crates, the very material that once served the local fishing industry and now, repurposed by international artists and creatives, serves as a provocation: how has this wasted matter transformed socio-marine ecosystems, and what can art do about it?
What made the day memorable was not just the art, but the depth of participation it unlocked. The "Adotta una Cassetta" (Adopt a Crate) campaign turned each visitor into a co-creator. The Digital Archive "Raccontaci il mare" (Tell us about the sea) collected personal stories, from fishers' memories to children's drawings, about Anzio's relationship with the water. And through citizen science stations, participants contributed directly to environmental data collection, blurring the line between audience and investigator.
When a City Council Thinks Like a Commons
But the day held a second, unexpected layer. As part of the main event, the Anzio City Council invited the Sailing Lab to present the PartArt4OW project in a dedicated lecture session, held on the occasion of the Master programme "Sviluppo Locale Community-Led" organised jointly by the Sapienza University of Rome and the University Ca' Foscari of Venice.
The CO>SEA research team, the scientific backbone of the Sailing Lab, engaged with Master students and local stakeholders on the theoretical foundations of marine social research and the methodologies of participatory action-research for effectively reaching Mission Ocean targets. The discussion moved from the academic to the concrete when City Councillor Luca Brignone led a long exchange on the innovative practice adopted by the Anzio City Council: a fully publicly managed multifunctional harbour, a rare model in Italy, and one that resonates deeply with Elinor Ostrom's framework for governing social-ecological systems as commons.
It was a conversation that captured something essential about what the Sailing Lab is trying to do: connect the lived reality of coastal communities with the theoretical and political tools needed to protect what they have built.
Art as Method, Harbour as Laboratory
For the Sailing Lab crew, the day in Anzio set the tone for what lies ahead. This is not a journey where art decorates the margins of science, or where research happens in a separate room from community life. In Anzio, the polystyrene crates on the quayside, the Master students debating commons governance, and the fishers telling their stories to a digital archive were all part of the same investigation, conducted not in a laboratory, but in the harbour itself.
The Sailing Lab will remain in the Anzio–Nettuno area through 28 June, when the official Departure Ceremony will mark the start of the six-week Mediterranean crossing. Next stops: Ponza, Ventotene, Naples, Salerno, Sardinia, Minorca, Barcelona, and Badalona, connecting ocean communities, documenting environmental challenges, and asking what participatory art can do for the sea.
The Sailing Lab is part of PartArt4OW — Participatory Art for Inclusive and Creative Ocean Literacy, a Horizon Europe project. Follow the journey at www.partart4ow.eu and explore the ecosystem at partart4ow.eu/ecosystem.
Track the route live: Google Maps route tracker
Watch live: PartArt4OW YouTube | Raw-News YouTube