# MAPS /// The Mediterranean Abyss: South Wall of Fortress Europe and Cemetery of the Poors | The Funambulist
▻http://thefunambulist.net/2014/07/01/maps-the-mediterranean-abyss-south-wall-of-fortress-europe-and-cemet
The map presented above is an artwork by Sabine Réthoré. It consists in a map of the Mediterranean Sea and its coastal regions that was subjected to two simple operations:
– A 90-degree tilt compared to the implicit imperial convention of placing the North on top.
– A withdrawal of all national borders.
That is how this map appears to us as simultaneously familiar and peculiar. Through it we recognize a space we know well – North Africans, Middle Easterns and South Europeans do at least – but our perception of it evolves thanks to the way it is represented. The “Borderless Mediterranean Sea” represents territories that seem optically closer to each other than when considered on a geopolitical map. The sea almost appears as a calm lake, where people on one bank would not feel fundamentally different from their neighbors on the opposite one. We can no longer see three continents struggling to exist but, rather, the sea as gathering lands around it. The names of the cities are worth reading out loud. Their sounds reveal more regional identities blending into each other, than strictly differentiated national belongings.
