CONFINE_ #1_The river of chaos

Confine is a work that aims to explore and learn about the Italian coastal environment. It is an investigation into the interplay of relationships and power relations that bind man, sea, and land. These relationships in many cases become critical, endangering the sustainability of different ecosystems. Moving along the border that separates the peninsula from the sea, the project aims to investigate through multimedia language the incessant contrast between land and sea, the fragilities that threaten the human presence along the coastline due to short-sighted anthropological practices that have laid the foundations for future catastrophes. #1 The Shores of Chaos In Italy, according to Legambiente's latest report on the coastal landscape, the rate of coastal erosion has more than tripled since 1970, and today 46% of Italy's sandy coasts suffer from it. The data speak in particular of 1,750 kilometres of low sandy coasts that currently have an average erosion rate of 46.4%, with peaks of up to 60% in the regions of Sicily and Calabria. We have therefore lost, on average, 23 metres of beach depth. The main causes of this loss, according to Legambiente, are to be attributed to soil consumption: from the construction of buildings to new port infrastructure works, and even inadequate coastal defence works. 'The Shores of Chaos' is the first stage of this journey along the Italian peninsula. Along the coasts that gave birth to Luigi Pirandello, sea and land inexorably clash, forcing man to intervene in time. The beach of Chaos, repeatedly referred to in the playwright's writings, is immersed in a very particular context beneath a calcarenitic ridge stretching from Eraclea Minoa to Porto Empedocle, close to the Valley of the Temples. In this stretch, coastal erosion is advancing inexorably, as is the landslide movement affecting the clay slope that faces the beach and on which the initial section of State Road 640 Agrigento - Caltanissetta runs. The distance separating the busy thoroughfare with the gap hollowed out by the landslide is slowly shrinking and frequent collapses are visible from the beach below. In addition, along the entire route there are several settlements at risk, such as houses, shops, the Montallegro nature reserve or the area designated for the construction of the regasification plant at Porto Empedocle. The latter represents one of the key elements for the balance and relationship between man and territory. The regasification plant is a reconversion plant for gas transported by sea that reverts it from a liquid to a gaseous state to be stored and transported through pipelines. The quay planned for the construction of the plant is located a few hundred metres from the tourist and commercial port of Porto Empedocle, and was built by taking land from the neighbouring coastal stretch. The project was put on hold for about seven years, opposed by activists and environmentalist associations because it was considered dangerous for the safety of the inhabited areas and the archaeological site, and also of dubious environmental sustainability, regarding the water disposal and treatment systems. Now, as a result of the current energy crisis inherited from the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, interest in the construction of the plant has revived. Enel, which owns the project, has obtained the necessary authorisations for construction and allocated a fund of 1 billion euros.