“I return to land with my eyes gazing the horizon”

Xavega art is a type of fishing, now considered “traditional”, where a group of men on a boat, cast their nets into the sea from a long cable with floats. Moving the boat that pulls the nets, they surround the shoals until they close a circle. Then they return to land, and the net is pulled through the mechanical force of tractors. When the net is pulled, it forms a bag where the fish comes, which is then collected by people in the sand. In the past, this type of fishing was completely artesanal, the nets were pulled by oxen and hand strength, the boats were bigger, which are now 8 men in a motor boat, there were 40 men in a more exalted communion with the sea, in a boat with oars, 10 men on each oar, using human strength, to make the boat pass the first waves of the coast. Currently mechanized, this type of fishing still have some handcrafted components, the men I saw practicing it have not lost their strength, even with mechanization, they now face other types of problems.

There is a huge difficulty in regularizing this type of fishing, because the fish chosen on the beach, some go to the fishers, other is for selling, other is offered to people who need it ans still remain fish caught by whether they are strangers who pass by or people who already go there regularly, closing the circle with the flocks of seagulls that eat everything that is left, in a short time, nothing left, and everything is taken advantage of. Due to its specificities, this type of fishing is highly ecological (compare to the Trawler fishing, which is quite ironic since it was given by the government highly destructive to marine species).

The initial idea for this work, perhaps came from an attraction for this relationship that man has with the sea, and a desire to talk about this type of fishing that is increasingly marginalized and put aside by the government, a desire to speak out against the current regime of what we could call capitalism and the world of consumption, where waste is increasing and increasing. It also interested me, the type of community, the ritual, the sewing of the nets, catching the fish in the sand, which mark this meeting of people, which we could call life, in its social and human side.

And it was this life, the life of the fisherman, that I followed this work, from the departure of the boat, early in the morning, with the cold of winter, to the communion of the meal by the sea. Also talking about these faces and people, who do not live with more than what they need, just use a fork for the meal, which cuts the potatoes, eating the fish with their hands, looking at the streak in the background, where the horizon it lost.

I tried to search with my images, what remains of these people, the memory of this type of fishing, a feeling of exalted nostalgia, to preserve what exist.