“Crafts of the Sea: Paros”: A celebration of boatbuilding, fishing and seafaring heritage across the Cycladic islands

Crafts of the Sea invites residents and visitors to explore the region’s maritime heritage

In conjunction with the annual “Kapetaneika” traditional boat regatta, Archipelago Network presents Crafts of the Sea: Paros, taking place from September 17 to 21 at the Agios Athanasios Gallery of Naousa. The exhibition celebrates boatbuilding, fishing and seafaring heritage across the Cycladic islands of Amorgos, Koufonisia, Paros, Santorini and Syros, while interrogating current challenges faced by these boatbuilding and fishing communities.

“Our boats used to bring goods to and from the islands. Barley, flour, wine and so on. And then things changed… and they began transporting materials for construction, cement, bricks etc.” Manolis Zisimopoulos, a Paros cargo captain, describes the shifts in regional trade over the course of his fifty years at sea. Today, Paros, like many other Aegean islands, is at a critical juncture: degradation of natural resources and uncontrolled touristic development pose imminent threats to the island’s landscape, marine environment and social fabric. Meanwhile, government-sponsored subsidies initiated to prevent overfishing have led to the destruction of the majority of traditional Greek wooden fishing boats since the 2000s.

Following presentations in Amorgos and Athens, this third iteration of Crafts of the Sea invites residents and visitors to explore the region’s maritime heritage, including photographic archival installations by Jacob Moe and documentary photographs by Maurizio Borriello. In the context of the exhibition, an open-air screening presents a series of documentary shorts produced by Archipelago Network about boatbuilders, fishers and cargo captains in Paros and other Cycladic islands. Together, these materials highlight the technical and cultural significance of these maritime trades, advocating for a future seen with, and from, the sea.

Crafts of the Sea is an exhibition series held in Amorgos, Athens and Paros. Curated by Maurizio Borriello and Jacob Moe, it is presented by Archipelago Network in collaboration with the Professional Fishing Association of Amorgos, the Goethe-Institut Athen and the Municipality of Paros, with the support of the Costas M. Lemos Foundation, the Goethe-Institut Athen, and Archipelago Network’s benefactors’ circle.

Through a grassroots approach to sourcing and preserving community heritage, the Crafts of the Sea exhibition series celebrates less tangible and monumental forms of maritime culture and contemporary boatbuilding, fishing and seafaring communities of Amorgos, Koufonisia Paros, Santorini and Syros. Via archival material, documentary photography, sound collages, and documentary shorts, Crafts of the Sea advocates for their continued relevance and existence in the years to come.

This historical archival material and the contemporary audiovisual documentation are the result of on-site research conducted by Archipelago Network throughout 2023-24 as part of the Maritime Trades of the Cyclades project, also presented on the organization’s online platform as an interactive digital map.

Curators’ Bios

Dr. Maurizio Borriello is a maritime ethnographer, shipwright, and documentary photo-/videographer. He has worked at various maritime museums and ship preservation centers in Norway restoring wooden ships recognized as historical maritime treasures by the Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage, and has conducted extensive field research in shipyards in South-East Asia, India, and the Mediterranean. His doctoral research focused on developing a sustainable wooden boatbuilding method by combining modern technologies with techniques documented during his comparative ethnographic study. He is currently working as boatbuilding instructor at Albaola Itsas Kultur Faktoria. He holds an MA in Asian and African Languages and has received a PhD from the University of Naples l’Orientale.

Jacob Moe is a documentarian and archivist. He is founder and principal investigator of Archipelago Network, an initiative for research and documentation of audiovisual heritage and knowledge on the Cyclades islands. As a film and radio producer, he has led fieldwork and community-based media projects in the Aegean islands and Brazil, addressing local material culture, traditional crafts, and indigenous media. He holds a BA in Political Science from Pomona College and an MFA in Social Documentation from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and has been awarded fellowships for independent research at the University of São Paulo and Academy of Athens, among others.

About Archipelago Network

The Aegean islands are havens of diasporic culture, traditional knowledge, and biodiversity. Yet today, accelerating forces such as overtourism and the global climate crisis exert local pressures on these coastal communities, threatening knowledge systems and environmental equilibriums. In this context, Archipelago Network takes up the Cyclades islands as laboratories for field research, residencies, publications, online projects, and public programs. The initiative works at the intersection of visual practices, cultural life, and the natural environment, providing open access to its digital collections while contributing to the development of local and regional memory through documentation and outreach activities.