In this Book
- Ground Sea: Photography and the Right to Be Reborn
- Book
- 2021
- Published by: Leuven University Press
- Series: Lieven Gevaert Series
-
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

TWO-VOLUME SET
Viewing the Strait of Dover through the lens of photography theory
Imagine a world in which each individual has a fundamental right to be reborn. This idle dream haunts Hilde Van Gelder’s associative travelogue that takes Allan Sekula’s sequence Deep Six / Passer au bleu (1996/1998) as a touchstone for a dialogue with more recent artworks zooming in on the borderscape near the Channel Tunnel, such as those by Sylvain George and Bruno Serralongue.
Combining ethnography, visual materials, political philosophy, cultural geography, and critical analysis, Ground Sea proceeds through an innovative methodological approach. Inspired by the meandering writings of W.G. Sebald, Javier Marías, and Roland Barthes, Van Gelder develops a style both interdisciplinary and personal.
Resolutely opting for an aquatic perspective, Ground Sea offers a powerful meditation on the indifference of an increasingly divided European Union with regard to considerable numbers of persons on the move, who find themselves stranded close to Calais. The contested Strait of Dover becomes a microcosm where our present global challenges of migration, climate change, human rights, and neoliberal surveillance technology converge.
Read more on the book's dedicated website: www.groundsea.be
This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer-Reviewed Content). Ebook available in Open Access.
Table of Contents

- Volume I
- Preface: Water-Bound
- pp. 15-32
- Embarkation Bone Point
- pp. 33-54
- Acknowledgments
- pp. 55-62
- Introduction: Sea-Stricken
- pp. 63-96
- Part I - Blade
- Chapter 1: Running on Water
- pp. 99-130
- Chapter 2: Ground Sea
- pp. 131-167
- Chapter 3: Ossuary
- pp. 177-214
- Chapter 4: Kairology
- pp. 215-242
- Chapter 5: Reliquiae
- pp. 243-290
- Deep Six / Passer au bleu, 1996/1998
- pp. 319-360
- Volume II
- Part II - Shuttle
- Chapter 6: The Right to Reappear
- pp. 378-419
- Chapter 7: Naming the Person without a Name
- pp. 420-457
- Chapter 9: This Precious Jewel
- pp. 530-577
- Chapter 10: Plotting
- pp. 578-631
- At Anchor: Pearl Diving
- pp. 632-673
- Bibliography
- pp. 702-737