“Ce’ vedimme a’ mare! ”, in the Neapolitan dialect meaning “Let’s meet at the seaside,” is a photographic project that chronicles the relationship between Naples, the sea and its inhabitants. The reportage investigates, from the factory town of Bagnoli (West ) to the neighborhood of San Giovanni a Teduccio (East), the dynamics of deprivation of the right to the sea for citizens by institutions in order to favor industrial, economic, tourist and privatization developmentsand interests. Naples, the largest seaside city in southern Italy, does not allow its people free access to the coast from east to west. The Bagnoli coastline is sadly scarred by the industrial husk of the Italsider complex, which cries out for revenge. After years of unkept promise of reclamation and after the De Lucia plan that envisaged the removal of the “colmata” ( the rectangle platform built in 1997 with waste materials from the 27 square metre industrial complex to steal space from the sea and expand the steelworks), the restitution of 2 km of public beach never came to fruition. So the restitution never became a reality. The istitutions amended the law obliging them to remove the waste materials and restore the coastline in order to host the world’s most prestigious sailing event in 2027: the America’s Cup. This event is estimated to result in an investment of €700,000, with 1.5 million in induced revenue and an investment of 1.2 million for reclamation. Where the public beach was to be built, where the inhabitants of the Coroglio suburb now live, the Villaggio Vela will be constructed, a luxurious mega resort to host the entire America’s Cup 2027. Instead, in the sea where Italsider once released millions of litres of poison for many years, including chlorine, ammonia, sulphur and hydrocarbons, floating platforms will be built where the super-rich will sip champagne, served by the children of a neighbourhood that, in addition to the factory’s poisons, cancer and lack of adequate healthcare facilities, will have to bow to labour blackmail and the promise of 12,000 temporary jobs for the big event.
The village of Coroglio, a working-class neighbourhood where former workers of the steelworks is located right in the “red zone”. For this reason, it will be dismantled, its houses demolished, and families displaced in record time, without providing any decent and acceptable housing solutions. Without having attended a democratic meeting to discuss possible solutions. Adding insult to injury, those who have swallowed the poisons of the steelworks for years will now also have to watch their homes fall apart. We are facing a total upheaval of urban planning and democratic instruments, where there is no dialogue with a people who are demanding explanations in the face of yet another
abuse. Unfortunately the situation on the eastern side does not improve matters.
Every year, access to the beaches becomes a form of social exclusion. Only those who can afford to pay the entrance fee to the private establishment are entitled to summer bathing, despite the extremely high temperatures. We must consider that the entire stretch of coastline is compromised due to wicked political choices, bathing bans due to years of pollution and neglect, and above all due to 99-year bathing concessions to private lidos. This is mainly happening in the Posillipo area, where privatisation and squatting prevent free access to citizens, except through reservation systems via an app. With quotas and closed numbers, it becomes very complicated to access them, so that most are forced to pay to the private lidos that have swallowed up the last bits of beach spared by the squatting of villas on the coast, which have plundered many beaches, turning them into “condominium” beaches. It is happening at Donn’Anna, Bagno Elena, Riva Fiorita and the Gaiola. Yet the Regional Administrative Tribunal ruled on the matter, declaring the reservation system illegitimate and asking for the state to be restored.
The municipality defers responsibility to the port authority, which stands idly by, justifying it as a solution to ensure public order: as if granting access to the low income class citizens is a matter to be monitored and controlled. The issue of access to the sea still presents many problems. In East Naples, in the San Giovanni a Teduccio district, an area
seriously compromised by the large industrial sector linked to oil processing and port activities, the free bathing beaches are dangerously close to sewage drains. The Volla collector sewer was created to solve the problem of rainwater drainage, but since it has no purification system, it tends to discharge water contaminated with faecal bacteria into the sea. Citizens of the San Giovanni district literally bathe in a sea contaminated by pathogenic Escherica coli and enterococci bacteria, responsible for possible urinary infections. Moreover, in the eastern stretch of the coastline, citizens have been demanding since 1998, the reclamation of 13 million square metres of seabed, which has never taken place.