Anita Conti

Initially an artistic bookbinder, Conti also published accounts of sea travel. Her writing attracted Édouard Le Danois of France’s marine fisheries research organization. She joined oceanographic campaigns from 1935 and, before the Second World War, sailed on a cod trawler working near Spitsbergen.

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During the war Conti photographed minesweeping in the Channel and North Sea and sailed aboard the fishing vessel Volontaire to West Africa. Her photographs recorded ocean-going crews, African fisheries and early aquaculture, preserving evidence of techniques and working conditions.

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Books including Racleurs d’océans and Géants des mers chaudes, together with lectures and photographs, described the conditions of fishing and warned about overexploitation. Her work connected observations of marine resources with the experience of people who worked at sea.

References: [1]