Although 70% of the earth's surface is covered by water, history is usually narrated with land as the center.
The famous American marine historian Lincoln Paine looked at the past through the ocean, turning his perspective from land to water. From the perspective of world history, people communicate and interact through oceans, rivers and lakes, as well as exchange and spread commodities,products and culture. From the rivers and oceans of ancient Egypt, the Greeks and the Mediterranean, to the continents and islands of the East, the establishment of the Maritime Silk Road, etc., these have all proved that the ocean constitutes a path to the modern world, and the ocean connects the world into One.
Civilization is the precipitation of history. It is beneficial to enhance mankind's adaptation and cognition of the objective world and conforms to human spiritual pursuit. It is the sum of the humanistic spirit, inventions, and public order and good customs that can be recognized and accepted by most people. Culture includes the sum of wealth created by human beings, and specifically refers to spiritual wealth, such as literature, art, education, and science. Civilization covers the relationship between man and man, man and society, and man and nature.

 

The theme of 2020IOAF is named: life, ocean, culture.The purpose of the theme is to call on people to look back on history, pay attention to the nourishment that the ocean has brought to mankind in the past millions of years, and treat the cultures formed in all basins on an equal footing, and to jointly create something conducive to human survival and development ecosystem. Especially in the special period of 2020, mankind will fight for the common problem of survival. At this moment, we need to respect cultural diversity, discover and appreciate the beauty of other cultures on the basis of cognition of our own culture, so as to appreciate, praise and blend with each other. People of different cultures must form a consensus of learning and helping each other, and jointly meet the opportunities and challenges of mankind in the future.

 

IOAF2020 international co-curator team: Xian yan (China), Boo Jong Chul (South Korea), Julian Moise (Austria), Alexandru-Cristian BUNII (Romania), Angelo Zzaven (Italy).