PARK VIEW GALLERY | TULIO SAMPAYO, FISHING WITH KITES
10:00am - 6:00pm

The Park View Gallery presents Fishing with Kites, a solo exhibition by artist Tulio Sampayo. Bocas de Ceniza is a breakwater more than 3 miles long, battered by a shaking sea and a rabid wind. Here, nature will breathe and pulsate agitatedly. It is the mouth of the Magdalena River in the Caribbean Sea, close to Barranquilla, Colombia. During the clash of salt and freshwater, fishermen manage to snatch fish from the sea with kites. The technique amazes from its simplicity to its scope. They raise small kites made from black garbage bags, the line remains on the surface of the sea with the weight provided by a plastic bottle, the hooks are prepared with bait, and at the end there is a fisherman swinging the line by hand. This game of patience and acuity is played in shifts every 22 hours a day, sheltered from the elements inside small houses made of boards and rusty nails. The remaining two hours the sea seems calm.
To take these photos, Sampayo had the indispensable help of a 74-year-old fisherman named Medina who welcomed him in the only concrete house that exists. “While smoking a cigarette, Mr. Medina told me that this was not his house, but he had lived here for more than 30 years. He also told me that these walls were the Colombian Navy's attempt to establish a base, but the wind blew it away. The electricity cables and the sea destabilized the breakwater, destroying the pipes.
He [informed] me that he would not receive any money for spending the night on his roof. His reason was simple: he did not pay to live so he would not charge anyone who wanted to stay. Nor did he receive any money in exchange for his generosity in giving me his bed and giving me water to drink.”
June 6 - July 19, 2025