This work documents the women of Zanzibar who cultivate seaweed in the intertidal zone, capturing their relationship with the ocean while reflecting on resilience, vulnerability, and the severe climate change impacts on this island.

My practice sits at the intersection of ocean innovation, climate change, and storytelling. I grew up by the Mediterranean, where the sea often felt still and unchanging. In Zanzibar, I encountered a different rhythm. The dramatic recession of the tide, exposing vast sandbanks and revealing a space where women step into the shallows to farm seaweed.

Seaweed farming, practiced for generations, provides both income and independence for women, while also supporting marine ecosystems. Yet today, this practice faces profound disruption. Rising water temperatures that reaching 29ºC on average are making traditional strains of seaweed fragile and less resilient. Some farmers are exploring deeper, cooler waters, but the transition is particularly challenging for those who have never learned to swim, let alone dive.

Through a combination of film and digital photography, I aim to explore these women's daily relationship with the sea, their labor under a scorching sun, their understanding of the tides, and their perseverance in the face of a climate crisis they did not cause. Coastal Biotech, the initiative featured here, is only one of thousands of examples of startups and community projects developing innovative responses to climate change.

Without storytelling and photography their work often remains invisible. This series is part of that mission: to amplify the voices and practices of these women, showing that for their communities, these solutions can transform entire lives. I want to give these local solutions access to a global stage. In this project, I seek to bridge the personal and the political, the scientific and the poetic. By focusing on the women within this intertidal space I hope to shed light on both the fragility and strength that define the life of those that live by and depend on the ocean.