National Geographic ‘Oceans’: Final Month at Villa Bardini

 

Until April 12: OCEANI (Oceans: Underwater Photography by David Doublet).  Villa Bardini. Open Tuesday- Sunday 10 am – 7:30 pm. Admission: €10. Free for children up to 6 years of age.

Villa Bardini is hosting a solo exhibition, showcasing work by New York-born underwater photographer David Doubilet. Titled ‘Oceani’ (Oceans), the show features over 80 selected  photographs which are displayed across 11 rooms, documenting over half a century of diving  and underwater exploration – offering visitors an immersive journey into the world that exists  beneath the surface.  

The show is sponsored by the Municipality of Florence and promoted by Fondazione CR  Firenze, Intesa Sanpaolo and Gallerie d’Italia, in collaboration with the National Geographic.  

Bringing the National Geographic to Florence for the first time, the exhibition celebrates the captivating beauty and fragility of biodiverse environments, imagined through under/over camera shots, a photographic technique invented by David Doubilet, which allows simultaneous  viewing of activity underwater and above sea level. Through these twin perspectives, David  Doubilet opens what he calls a “portal into that other 71% of our planet.”

 

The photographs feature intimate encounters with marine life that are brought to life through  vibrant colour and high-definition rendering. Throughout the exhibition, these images are  arranged into visual juxtapositions: warm/cold, close/far, bright/dark, scary/cute – revealing the  diversity of aquatic environments across the world, from a face-to-face encounter with a hawksbill sea turtle, spotted in Papa New Guinea, to a poisonous box jellyfish drifting through the Australian sea.  

Upon exiting the exhibition, the tone shifts. The final section presents emotional, raw images that  confront viewers with the reality that threatens life underwater. The photographs featured in this  collection document the impacts of the climate crisis, mass tourism, coral bleaching and  pollution. Powerful scenes such as plastic waste piled up off the coast of the Verde Island  Passage in the Philippines, a region recognised as one of the most biodiverse marine habitats on Earth, urge viewers to reflect upon the world that rapidly decays at the hands of human pressure. 

Through the lens of David Doubilet, world-class photojournalism becomes an artistic campaign  to defend and protect the oceans. (april shally)