X Mermaids

a photographic essay on land, fantasy, and ecology

I won’t mention where the following place, my place, is
I chose that way because that’s the point: its protection, preservation, and spell ~
—— Otherwise I would start this text right there: date and place from where I write this diary entrace. But I ~ physically ~ cannot do that. I’ve long ago merged with that place. I am one with the Ocean. Mentioning it, promoting it, is feeding its ongoing barbaric transformation.
But may we, its beauty & my voice, inspire you to observe and identify the wildlife around you and make a pact with it.

Remote, peripheral, unknown. That is its charm. It was always.
When I came here - dragged by parental dreams - I was 14. I didn’t know how much of a sea creature I was back then - I didn’t like it at first. There were no humans at sight, no urban construction or distractions, boring for a capital city teenager. Took me dozens of seasons and rituals, until Neptune took me.

But slowly at first, fast now, things are changing around this coast in ways that aren’t so mystical anymore. Some days I wonder: is it my hormones or the smell of the Ocean isn’t so dense and tick anymore? Right away each wave and change of tide prove less and less sea plants at the shore. A luxurious surf house occupying in a decadent manner part of the landscape.
The waves bringing more and more plastic, and the residues you, my friend, leave at the beach aren’t Summer books to trade, but bottles and packages from your lunch and sunset party. It hurts us when we swim. Most are eaten by marine animals that mistake it for food.
Then water temperatures go up to 23 degrees in what’s always been known for a cold ocean water. And someone complains: there’s no good fish to eat!

I can’t with the greed. It’s never enough - the cars, the fish, the houses.

I’m in their company and they’re hurt; we’re one with these paleolithic cliffs and the argyle rocks from the Jurassic period. Outdoors, indoors, underwater, always barefoot, body on the ground.

In my House of Shells, I’m made of the same clay, rocks, and sand. _ Water.

~ Devoted to the ocean and the preservation of the marine coast and fossils - falling, disappearing, because of cars and Summer vans, because of the heavy constructions arriving when cities are at their housing limit and affordable only to few; I wonder about our natural habitats. The mermaids, the ocean species, the terrestrial, emerged, and submerged, plants? What about us then? We depend completely on the safety of these ecosystems.

I hope the colors and moments I paint below
hints you to walk (yes, walk) or to swim to littoral places instead of driving vehicles and parking them on top of sensible cliffs contributing to the erosion of land; I hope that urges you to be mindful and conscious of the creatures (every alive or imagined being) you interact with in nature; to preserve the sonic acoustics and keep it silent for the birds that are more and more disoriented; and to help cleaning the beaches - pack every little trash w/you.
Moreover, I wish you connection and confluence with the ocean and littoral ecosystems. More than 50% of all species on Earth are found under the ocean. And if you aren’t aware, we’re being extinct.

Catarina Neves Ricci
Oct 2023 / to be published at WTLF January 2024