A woman on board a boat is a sign of bad luck; and if she is on her moon, bleeding, the sea gets angry. This is just one of the many superstitions of seafarers on the Venezuelan coast. But the economic, social and migration crisis has led to a change: a feminisation of fishing, traditionally a masculine activity. We, the all-woman Solunar collective, combine photography, local knowledge, journalism, anthropology and feminist activism to map this development, especially in the states of Aragua, La Guaira and Falcón.
The project, Luna de Agua, or Water Moon, touches on the natural cycles that affect the fisherwomen’s lives, such as lunar phases and tides, and cycles of the body. It speaks too, to the country’s economic crisis.
The coast mirrors the inequalities across Venezuela, where poverty is gendered, as the Living Conditions Survey in Venezuela (Encovi 2021) finds. Women take on the unpaid work, shouldering household responsibilities in communities where basic services and job opportunities are limited.
Added to such precariousness is the constant threat of gender violence. A femicide is recorded every 47 hours in Venezuela, according to 2023 data from the NGO Utopix.
In coastal areas, women survive such adversity by uniting. The fisherwomen of Ocumare de la Costa have formed an organisation called Mujeres de la Pesca Ocumare. They ensure each of them has access to the male-owned boats; the men who accept them realise that women can be better organised, and use technique instead of brute force.
In this image, Milagros “Corito” Molina floats in La Trilla River near Ocumare de La Costa with her sons, Rogleeberth and Rovjuan, during a farewell party for a colleague migrating to Colombia.
Our project explores how women went from weaving nets to casting them, and draws inspiration from the women who participate. As fisher Doris Duque says: “I fish like a woman, not like a man. And my strength is a woman’s, which is just as important.”