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SEREAS
(Mermaids)

This photography project is the result of a three-month sojourn in 2012 and 2013, when I lived with a community of women shellfish harvesters in and around the village of Cambados (Galicia, Spain) doing the fieldwork to my PhD thesis.

For historical reasons, shellfish harvesting has been a bastion reserved to fisherwomen, and it represents a victory over nature, over society, and over limitations imposed on women past and present. Professionalization of shellfish harvesting has been customarily researched from viewpoints related to commercialization and its consequential changes. Thus, there are few in-depth studies dealing with the identity of women and, more precisely, the extent to which all those changes have informed the identity of women shellfish harvesters and the image they project to society.
This work aimed to contribute to the stream emanating from UNESCO which highlights endangered cultural values. 

This work became part of an online library of the European Comission to illustrate the social and employment realities in Europe.

© 2013 Mar Cuervo