On 29 September in Milan, at the space on Corso Venezia 45, Pray for Seamen opens — the new stage of the photographic project by Francesco Bellina, recipient of the Italian Council 2021 award.

Sicilian photographer born in Trapani, with family roots deeply tied to fishing, Francesco Bellina guides us on a journey that connects places seemingly far apart: the coasts of his hometown, the Kerkennah Islands in Tunisia, and the port of Jamestown in Accra, Ghana. These three territories share the same belonging to the sea — a fragile resource, contested today and marked by profound economic, environmental, and social transformations.

There is no space in his images for nostalgia or rhetoric: instead, Bellina offers an intimate and universal gaze that returns the faces and gestures of those who continue to live by and from the sea amid decline, resistance, and uncertainty. Men and women who fish, mend nets, and watch the horizon. Places, boats, and colours change, but the meaning of their work remains unchanged — everywhere threatened by industrial fishing, port transformations, and the loss of marine biodiversity.

The exhibition aligns with Goal 14 of the UN 2030 Agenda, dedicated to the preservation of life below water, reminding us that the sea is not only a local asset but a global resource on which the balance of the Planet depends.

After its debut in Palermo at the Ecomuseo del Mare (June 2023) and its display at the Acquario Civico of Milan during Milano Art Week 2025, Pray for Seamen now returns with the support of Monx Legal and under the curatorship of Izabela Anne Moren, reaffirming itself as a visual and civic appeal: stop, look, listen. Behind every global transformation, there are always stories, lives and people.