Fisherfolk

L.M.The ocean was always there. It was very present. It’s part of the world in which I grew up. I come from a fisherman’s family → so even though the ocean is more of a space of leisure for me, for my family it is more connected to labor.

L.M. That’s what I meant when I said that the ocean is precious. → My uncle still goes to the rocks on top of the ocean to fish. The rocks are very dangerous and sharp and steep – and he’s 70. Fishing is a very unfair business. My uncle is often staying on the rocks with his fishing rod until 4 am. And I often wonder, what is his relationship to the ocean, actually?

I have fisherfolk in my family but they don’t know how to swim.

P.P. I agree that swimming is a class thing. For fisherfolk, the ocean is work, → you don’t necessarily enjoy going there. Whenever we were going to the seashore for leisure → we would do a picnic.

Elements make you feel small. Respect and fear → define one’s relation to the ocean. It's work. A fisher friend from Brittany once said that when you fall far into the ocean, knowing how to swim doesn’t change anything. Cause any way you cannot fight it.

P.v.C. When I was young, I was a fisherman (until my 40s).

As a fisherman, your life is completely free. You’re paid by the percent of the catch. The more we caught, the more money we would make. You have to be fast. You’re awake for 48 hours to work on it.

As a fisherman, you’re not only responsible for the catch but you also have to repair the nets when they are damaged. It’s a lot of work to fix the nets but you are not paid for it. There are different kinds of nets – trawling nets are used on beam trawlers.

The reason we use beam trawlers is: we’ve used them for generations. People therefore have the know-how to use them very well. Especially on dirty -rocky- grounds. The Dutch don’t go there. Only the Belgians go there → and fishing a lot of different kinds of fish.

A fisherman is the only professional hunter in the world. There’s nothing more important in the world than having – and providing – food. Nowadays there are lots of laws and quotas regulating the fishing industry. Before things were more free.

I also have a huge collection of books on whale fishery in the 16, 17 and 18th centuries. Or on the exploration of pole-regions by boat. Those themes appear a lot in my work as points of reference of how human behavior develops. No idea why.