The Atlas consists of a total of 30 maps depicting discarded ammunition, including recent remnants from the 1999 NATO bombing; wrecks not only of ships but also of submerged military aircraft; oil and gas drilling sites in the Adriatic; planned wind farms; sewage and wastewater discharge points; locations of fish farming, desalination plants, and salt harvesting. In doing so, it provides a credible and integrated representation of the extensive human impact on the marine ecosystem, as well as the importance of the sea in the political, economic, and social relations of the countries bordering the Adriatic.

“The work on the project was also a kind of archaeology of the present: digging through the depths of digital space to find reliable traces, and then geolocating and systematizing them into a shared logic. While some data were officially available, others were gaps that still need to be illuminated through research. The map is a testimony to the work done so far, but it remains open—ready to receive new traces and to generate new understandings of the Adriatic from them,” said the project’s author, Ana Dobrašinović.

The maps are presented through a unique visual language, showing the different layers of data regarding human impact. The author of the cartographic illustration, Snežana Zlatković, emphasizes that the drawing language is multilayered, designed on one hand to support the abundance of precise data, while on the other hand not abstracting it into its own complex system of expression. “Data on the impact of the human factor on natural resources range widely, from those mapped through careful point recording to those showing the density and intensity of traces in the Adriatic Sea. Depending on what they record, the points and traces indicate the dynamics of human impact on the environment, expressed through vivid colors. The communicative aspect of the drawings is dual, in a sense intentionally contrasting, trying on one hand to confront us with the scale of the sea and the relationship of humans to nature, and then to transform that same impact into synthetic maps—almost a delirious depiction that warns us how we should live in relation to natural resources,” Zlatković explains.

In addition to the maps, the New Adriatic Atlas includes original texts by renowned authors from the Adriatic region, each describing from their own perspective what the Adriatic means to them and how we treat it. The authors include Ida Križaj Leko (University of Rijeka), writers Ana Jeinić and Marko Pogačar, Manuelo Razzi (University of Bologna), Špela Hudnik (DELTALAB), and Marco Varucci.

Following the official presentation, the New Adriatic Atlas will continue its promotion along Montenegro’s coast and through international presentations—in Venice, Milan, Basel, and London—throughout 2026.

About the project:

The New Adriatic Atlas is supported by the British Council through the Culture and Creativity for the Western Balkans (CC4WBs) project, funded by the European Union. CC4WBs aims to foster dialogue in the Western Balkans by enhancing the cultural and creative sectors for increased socio-economic impact. Over a 48-month period, the CC4WBs will improve the performance of the cultural and creative sectors in order to enhance skills, knowledge, access to financial aid to increase competitiveness and sustain co-production and circulation of goods and services in the Western Balkans.

New Adriatic Atlas has also been funded by the Ministry of Culture and Media, Government of Montenegro, through support program for Creative industries. 

The idea for the New Adriatic Atlas is based on the results of the Creative Europe project New Temporality, in which the APSS Institute from Podgorica participates. As part of this project, master’s students from the Faculty of Architecture at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, under the mentorship of Dijana Vučinić, conducted research on the Anthropocene and the human impact on the Adriatic basin.

This research, presented through a series of data-rich maps, highlighted various aspects of human intervention in the sea, including shipwrecks, infrastructure, and protected areas (http://www.discoveradriatic.me/). In a later phase, the research evolved into an exhibition titled At the Beach, held at the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion in Barcelona in February 2025.

The installation was part of the collective exhibition Pavilion Cross-Occupancies, organized within the New Temporality program, funded by Creative Europe. Occupying the large pool of the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion, the At the Beach exhibition presented data on human impact in the Adriatic that is usually invisible when observing the open sea.