Sustainable Fishing in Human Scale – Visual essays and long distance interviews

Application summary

What are the purposes of local fishing today? Where and how is small scale fishing a way to cover basic socioeconomic needs, and how does it relate to the marine ecosystem? 'Sustainable Fishing in Human Scale' examines the roots of low-tech fishing, their anthropological aspects and environmental impact. Following the thread of tradition of fishermen and fisheries, this project inspects fishing techniques in different cultures, as a reminder of self sustainability in a human scale, that stands in opposition to industrial mass fishing fleets. The project began 2019, with the icefishers at Vanhankaupunginlahti. One year later we are experiencing the warmest winter of the century in the same area and up to today, ice fishing has not even been possible. The first approach to this project was driven by the interest in fishing traditions, but as time passed, weather changed and as the work kept developing, other aspects became evident. New questions appeared: How does climate change effect and alter fishing? And how do the the socio economical situations differ in different places of the world? In home residency I will proceed an artistic research, that continues my ongoing project: ’Sustainable Fishing in Human Scale’. This project participates in the exhibition and research days: 'Cooking For The Apocalypse’ 20.11.-9.12.2020, Exhibition Laboratory, curated by Jack Faber. “The exhibition is a major contribution to the public discussion on species survival and relations in the age of climate crisis.” My research will continue the essays on icefishing in Finland and artisanal fishing in Mexico, by the means of online interviews and literature. The entire work will find it’s future outcome in a collection of visual essays, that inspect the variety of fishing techniques between different cultures as divergent to unsustainable growths. Further they investigate today’s socio economical needs and traditions behind local fishing, regarding the relation with the local ecosystem.