The exhibition proposal for the call "Arteshop Bilbao 2017" was developed through the site-specific project "Neurona Sarea" at the Mercado de la Ribera in Bilbao. Based on an investigation of the selected location (Bilbao's Ribera Market) and the traditional history of the fishing and seafaring trade on the coasts of Bizkaia and Guipuzkoa, the aim was to pay tribute to a centenary and artisanal sector almost invisible nowadays: the "rederas", the women of the sea. Those who maintain the art of making fishing nets the traditional way.
 

"There have been many women who, for centuries, working at the dockside, in forced postures and outdoors, have sewn and repaired the fishing gear of the artisanal purse seine fleet. It is an eminently feminine trade, marginal in many cases, unknown to a good part of the citizens, and invisible in many respects for labor legislation". -Maite Burgoa, a professional redera from Ondarroa, Basque Country.

The project consists of the handmade elaboration of a net of 3 x 3 meters, but with the characteristic of having the shape of neural networks. As an artist, I always work under the fusion of the dualism between art and science through neurology and the formation of thoughts. It is therefore very interesting for me to face this project under this play of words and meanings in front of the woven net. The "neural" net hanged from the ceiling of the second floor, to the ground in one of the entrances of the market, playing with the spaces and volumes inside the Mercado de la Ribera.

To sew the network, I contacted the Federation of Women Sea Workers of the Basque Country, established in the ports of Bermeo, Lekeitio and Ondarroa, and in Gipuzkoa, in the ports of Getaria, Orio and Hondarribia. My primary aim was to collaborate with these women, in an attempt to give them the visibility they so much deserve.

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This project is connected to the photographic research project "Sarea".
 

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