Water giants are hungry for air, from Italy to Hawaii to Japan

Initially dedicated to an academic career, she interrupted it when the call came from Unesco, years after an internship she did when she was very young and during which she had evidently made her mark. She had no doubts: she chose to work in an organisation where she felt she could make a difference. He broadened the scope of his intervention as much as possible: 'Not only oceans: I think we also need 'science literacy', for everyone. Science must be explained, told, never imposed. It is a continuous dialogue, and the great discoveries come by progressive approximations. Notions must be given so that people make the right choices,' he explains. Also through example. Like the one she received from the headmaster of her high school, which she returns by trying, in turn, to involve more and more young women in the world of research and Stem: 'I believe in the importance of role models. Girls who study the 'hard sciences' - mathematics, physics - are still rare in Italy, perhaps partly because they have few role models to look up to. I tell my career story trying to inspire, but in an honest way, showing even the hardest and most difficult aspects of doing research'. The collaboration with Sea Beyond is a tangible example of how science can be transmitted in an innovative way. "What works today is to share information by combining art and science, with the glue of emotions. Art does not transmit scientific data in the strict sense, but reinterprets it, and often opens up new horizons for research. With Blue Schools, we have seen that the best ideas have come from the interaction between science and humanities teachers".

The collaboration with the Prada group goes beyond the classic concept of patronage and is not limited only to project financing. "They have also allowed us to open a dialogue on the materials that are used to produce garments and accessories, which has helped to broaden the brand's own knowledge of what is ecological and what only seems to be". A relationship of trust consolidated over the years, with Italy leading the way in terms of the number of students involved. Blue Schools started in 2019 and the next call will be in September 2025. Guided by their teachers, the students undertake to create projects to communicate and disseminate the beauty and fragility of the oceans, with no constraints other than that of creativity. From Trivial Pursuit style board games to video content for social media, the students put their creativity at the service of a virtuous network. They are the best ambassadors of the project: "The winners of the second edition, two 15-year-olds from Peru, decided to invest the prize money to create their own NGO, Océanica. Today they continue to collaborate with Sea Beyond and organise fundraisers. There are institutes that participate several times: this year a Chinese school finally won, after it had always qualified in second place!" she concludes, smiling.

"TO SHOOT CONSCIOUSNESS, YOU NEED POETRY".

Enzo Barracco, Emmy-nominated photographer

Robert Capa's advice - 'if your photos aren't good enough, it's because you weren't close enough' - Enzo Barracco made it his own. Even too much. Like when, in Antarctica, he photographed an ice wall from the sea, a hundred metres of vertical wall. At one point he stopped everything and told his team "let's go!" just in time before the wall collapsed in on itself and risked running over the raft. "I can't explain what I heard, but I noticed that the albatrosses had disappeared, there was a strange silence. It was like receiving a message from nature. With the collapse, a frightening wave came up and the smallest piece of ice floating around us was the size of a bus!" he recalls. The sound of the huge iceberg breaking, 'the loudest I have ever heard in my life', gave the title to the book dedicated to the ice continent. A long-standing contributor to Sea Beyond, Barracco left a job in fashion, thunderstruck by the figure of the explorer Ernest Shackleton, only to return to collaborate with a luxury fashion house like Prada, but from a different point of view. "Today my work is focused on the oceans. I choose remote, wild places that tell the story of biodiversity. Also to make people understand what treasure we would lose if we ruined them forever. I believe that each of us must do our part to fight climate change. I do it with photography, because it needs no translation and can be understood anywhere'. In front of a photo taken in Antarctica, he explains: "I saw an iceberg that had lost its shape, it was rotating because it was melting. That shot, a block of ice struggling to survive, is not just a beautiful photo, but a testimony. Because science and communication are needed to shake people up, but also poetry'.

For Sea Beyond, he worked on Antarctica and Galapagos, recounting the delicate fascination but also the strength of marine ecosystems. The work became an exhibition in Prada's New York headquarters and resulted in two books: The Noise of Ice, Antarctica and The Skin of Rock, Galapagos, for which he received an Emmy nomination. The third step, presented in Tokyo, is dedicated to Hawaii: a selection of images and a new book, The Blue on Fire, Hawai, with a foreword by Lorenzo Bertelli.

Once again, there was no shortage of thrills. The cover photo, stormy grey-green waves, silvery spray, was taken literally inside the water. 'I was on the beach in Hawaii, on the North Shore, the surfing area par excellence. I started approaching to take pictures of the impact zone, the point where the wave closes in on itself: I am a freediver, I was sure I knew what I was doing. But, I don't know how, I found myself swimming towards the point of impact. I shot underwater, dragged by the huge waves that then whipped me onto the beach. Inside the picture, for real!". The Sicilian photographer, who lives between London and New York, tells how his reportages come about: "First, I write. The idea always starts with writing the project. Of course, these are guidelines, you cannot make detailed plans with nature. Fashion can be unpredictable - and when I was working on it, it was - but never like natural ecosystems. That's why I always try to anticipate what might happen, knowing, however, that it will often be bigger than me and bigger than any prediction,' he says. It comes naturally to him to ask how a photographer with a solid foundation and old-fashioned working methodology - he prepares the trip, goes to the location in person, does the inspections, the shot arrives only after days of preparation - lives in a world increasingly dominated by artificial intelligence. "I don't feel threatened. AI is just a tool, which I don't use anyway. My job is to connect an audience with nature, as authentically as possible; if you don't go there, you can't convey emotions. I did an exhibition in Geneva with photos of Antarctica and a woman caught the sense of danger when she looked at the photo of the ice wall that was going to collapse soon. If you are honest when you shoot, people understand that. This has nothing to do with artificial intelligence'.