Visual Representations of the Sea

The chapter shows that visual representations of the sea often depict it as an accessory to human endeavour, to be crossed or exploited, but that other representations of the sea’s own materiality exist. Addressing themes of colonial cartography, materiality and migration in turn, it first discusses how the sea became a site of human heroism, conquest and overcoming fear of the unknown. The chapter then shows how the sea is often ‘flattened’ into a two-dimensional, geometric space, thereby losing any sense of its material fluidity in favour of a focus on its strategic uses. It explores maritime representations, which are often constitutive of and fundamentally ‘Other’ to national imaginings, before looking at how the sea can be a nationalist accessory but also a source of unease, both literally and figuratively.