These forces of nature can have the ability to offer a very basic comfort while at the same time they draw from within us awe, fear, anguish and the adrenaline-driven instinct for survival.

Like the sea, sunset and the moon solitude can be linked to pain and abandonment while at the same time also standing as an invitation for experiences that enhance growth and bring about self-reflection.

The word ‘solitude’ is derived from the Latin solitudinem, which, for some, carries with it a sense of desolation and aloneness. The word ‘alone,’ however, comes from the Mediaeval words all anne, which can be read as ‘wholly oneself.’

The web of meaning around the concept of solitude, therefore, contains both the acknowledgement of pain as well as an invitation to transform that pain into a deeper understanding of who you are.

The COVID-19 pandemic has unleashed solitude into people’s lives like never before in living memory. Aloneness has changed the abstract homes within which we become who we are. Spaces shift, relationships are put under pressure, time alters its flow and our identities are tested to their limits.

What do the new experiences of aloneness teach us about our humanity and about who we are, both together and apart? 

Sea Sunset Moon seeks to find an answer to this question via the work of seven interdisciplinary artists exploring a set of Mediterranean symbols that rise and set in our collective experience of aloneness.

The collective also includes a catalogue featuring essays on themes of solitude by Ruth Bianco and Michael Zammit.

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