Letter from The Beyond the Shell Project Creator
Hello,
To introduce myself, I am a Ph.D. student of anthropology at University of Nevada, Reno with a personal investment in this project and the Beyond the Shell documentary, which I started with the Advanced Laboratory of Visual Anthropology (ALVA) at CSU, Chico. Not only did I grow up in California, with an appreciation for the coast, I was also a recreational abalone diver. In the few seasons I had the opportunity to dive I enjoyed the sense of community that camping, diving, and deep-sea fishing brought. One of my favorite memories from these times is a potluck the group I dove with would have on the final nights of the trip. Everyone in the surrounding campsites would be invited to sit down for a delicious hand-caught seafood meal and enjoy great conversation as well as card games.
The concept for this project and the Beyond the Shell film first came to me in the early spring of 2021 when I was toiling with the thought of when and or if I would dive next. This got me thinking on how the closure of the fishing season affected individuals and species beyond me. I considered the Indigenous communities, who for generations had interacted with these coastal landscapes and biotic communities only to watch them be colonized, overfished, and harmed by sea-surface warming events (notably the heat wave termed “The Blob” and El Niño events of 2015 and 2016; https://www.nps.gov/articles/theblob.htm) induced by anthropogenically induced climate change. I considered the Indigenous communities who had been managing these landscapes for generations and the Japanese and Chinese divers whose initial income as immigrants in the early to mid 1900s was fishing for abalone which then evolved into a community of its own. I considered the local businesses on the coast who were closing due to a lack of business because of the season closure and the COVID-19 pandemic. Most importantly I considered the future generations who won’t have the luxury of enjoying the beauty that is red abalone and the community that comes with it, should the environmental conditions continue to decline. I considered the communities “Beyond the Shell”.
Not only does this problem affect countless communities and their traditions, as well as cultural heritage and business commerce, but it also has grave effects on the surrounding environment. The lack of kelp is a decline in the environment I can personally attest to as in the few years I dove the decline was significant and rapid. Each year I would visit and each year there would be less kelp. By the end of this progression there was little to no kelp left and the abalone was brittle and diseased withering syndrome). Personally, I regret fishing the last year that I did and hope to promote more sustainable practices and environmental care in the future bringing more awareness to the issues at hand. Through the The Beyond the Shell Project and by extension the film, Beyond the Shell, and The Abalone Shell Collaborative I hope to accomplish such a task while also creating a platform for individuals with a greater temporal investment at stake to have a voice.
Thank you for your interest,
Alexandria Firenzi
Beyond the Shell | Producer and Director