As part of Festival Somos Mar, students from Cabo Blanco worked with our friends TAFA Taller Ambulante to make an animated video showcasing the creation of a mural. As a community, Cabo Blanco may look unassuming, squeezed in-between rugged desert cliffs and the pounding surf. Yet this fishing village once hosted Hollywood’s A-list celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart, Joe di Maggio, and even a writer, Ernest Hemingway. Apart from its solitude, this stretch of desolate coastline offered adventure – the chance to hunt 1000-pound marlins and massive bluefin tuna only a mile or two from shore. But with the crash of Peruvian anchoveta fishery in the late 1960s due to changing ocean conditions and overfishing, came the billfish’s decline as well.
The hype around Cabo Blanco lessened, and the celebrities left, leaving Peru’s local artisanal fishery to secure and sustain what remained. This community is resilient and one of the few places where sailboat fishing is still strongly knitted through its social fabric. Students highlighted the creation of the mural, brought to "life" through stop-motion animation!