Saskia Lenaerts | Rapprochement at Sea

This research explores the maritime condition of Greece through the sea as a space of encounter, movement, and negotiation. Greece occupies a complex geopolitical position where trade, migration, naval power, and cultural exchange converge. Historically, the Mediterranean has functioned as a shared space connecting people, goods, and ideas across borders. Yet these same waters are increasingly defined by surveillance, territorial disputes, and border enforcement.

The project approaches the sea as both a material and social archive. Central to the research is the figure of the ship: a temporary society in which people of different backgrounds depend upon one another through shared labor, mutual responsibility, and continuous acts of maintenance. Within this context, seafaring becomes not only a history of movement but also a model for coexistence across difference.

Using fashion and material transformation as research methods, the project investigates how maritime materials and traditions – including naval and coast guard uniforms, sailmaking, and repair techniques – carry histories of authority, mobility, and belonging. Through collaborative making with communities whose lives have been shaped by maritime borders, these materials will be deconstructed and reconfigured into new garments and material studies.

The act of material transformation becomes a form of rapprochement: not the resolution of difference, but the creation of a shared future.