Festival: Memories of the Sea

The race towards the deep world is accelerating. For two centuries, imagination has given way to science and technology, without eliminating fears. From antiquity to the present day, the deep sea has filled the human imagination with creatures that are as fascinating as they are disturbing, testifying to man's lack of knowledge of this environment but also to the powerful attraction it has always aroused.
A space that has always been mysterious: to access it, explore it and use it, it was necessary to invent dedicated machines and map its immensity .... A challenge that has lost none of its intensity. The challenges of the deep sea, the challenges of knowledge, technique, adventure and courage are still with us, as stimulating and as dizzying yesterday as they are today: access to the abyss, discovery of new forms of life, anticipation of volcanic eruptions... The mysteries remain, as does the desire to conquer and... to appropriate the potential wealth of the deep sea: a common heritage of humanity and a possible biological and mineral Eldorado, but at the heart of rivalries between the major maritime powers.
The fantasised monsters of yesterday have been replaced today by other threats, real ones: armed confrontations and new criminalities under the sea, loss of plant and animal biodiversity, accentuation of climatic upheavals... Knowledge has marginalised the legend of the deep sea, it has not ruined their imagination, it has displaced and enriched it: the exceptional progress of underwater imaging has given rise to new wonder, real fascination in the face of the discoveries of life. Technological breakthroughs in the exploration of the sea bed and the great depths have enabled or amplified the knowledge of an exceptionally rich underwater archaeological heritage and at the same time demonstrated its fragility. They have also revealed the threats buried in wrecks or dumps, veritable underwater time bombs.
Dedicated to the "Depths", the 2023 edition of the Memories of the Sea Festival will seek to bring its mysteries, challenges and threats to the surface.
Programme in progress.

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