Piscary unravels how the design of fishing gear in turn designs our environment.

The spacing of netting, seasons, sizing of containers, material, and methods are all choices that sculpt habitat and culture in the Pacific Northwest.

In Piscary, art guides an observation of industry and ancestry. Local author and landscape designer, Phia Sennett, traces regional transformation through photography, archives, poetry, collage, and mapping. The book’s dream-like photographs and collages match a mistaken reality of salmon and the new role of the species as a symbolic icon.

Even though today’s wild salmon are at five percent of historic numbers, the fishing industry continues to define the Salish Sea. Each chapter of Piscary takes place at a different elevation and explores a breadth of fishing practices encompassing wild caught, reefnet, fish farmed, hatchery, and aquaculture.