Pray for Seamen

Pray for Seamen is a photographic research project by Francesco Bellina investigating, through encounters with fishermen on the ground, the struggles of small-scale fisheries and port communities across Trapani, Sicily, the Kerkennah Islands, Tunisia, and Jamestown, Accra, Ghana, as a result of global warming and, notably, of the exploitative action of large-scale industrial fishing on the local ecosystems. Coming himself from a family of fishermen, Bellina offers an intimate portrait inviting us to reconnect with the human dimension of the immense transformation we are assisting to. Although the fishermen of the Sicilian, Tunisian, and Ghanaian coasts are fundamentally rooted in their local economy and cultural identity, Pray for Seamen aims to shed light on the global dynamics and consequences that bound these three distinct geographies together and that directly concern all of us.