Fascinating audio-visual installation explores fishing heritage

The long-abandoned fishing station at Stenness in the north-eastern district of Northmavine has been the focus of work by Janette Kerr and Jo Millett. The most recent element in their project is a ‘sound walk’, which employs cutting-edge GPS technology to offer a fascinating, immersive insight into the hard lives of the fishermen who were based there.

Janette is a painter who works in landscapes and seascapes, and especially in their historical context. Jo uses moving images and sound to explore similar themes and their links with memory and location.

The sound walk builds on their earlier exploration of the Stenness story. Back in 2017, they exhibited a video and sound installation, Confusing Shadow with Substance, at the Shetland Museum and Archives. It’s being made available again at venues in Shetland and elsewhere. The tour began in early September 2021 as part of Shetland’s film festival, ScreenPlay, at Easthouse, a picturesque thatched cottage – now the home of a local history group – in West Burra.

The installation involves projecting three simultaneous video streams onto a wide screen, with sound recordings as accompaniment. Sample images from these appear a little farther down this page. The well-attended opening evening generated local interest among folk with fishing connections as well as artists and writers.

The inspiration for Janette and Jo’s work is the haaf fishing industry that played a huge part in Shetland life in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. ‘Haaf’ derives from the Old Norse word ‘hav’, which means the deep or open sea; in Shetland, that meant fishing 30-40 miles from land using sixareens, open, wooden vessels with six oars and a square sail.

Early examples of these were imported from Norway in kit form but many were also built in Shetland. The boat shown above, the Vaila Mae, was constructed much more recently for the Shetland Museum.

It hardly needs saying that fishing has always been a hazardous pursuit; but it was especially so when working in the temperamental North Atlantic, so far from land, in relatively small, open boats.

Thus, despite the haaf fishing being a summer activity, there were accidents. Some were disastrous for the communities concerned, with many lives and boats lost.

Stenness was one among more than a hundred such fishing stations around Shetland.

Preparations for the season would begin in the spring. Boats would be tarred, equipment would be checked and any storm damage to the fishing station buildings would be repaired. Fishing traditionally began at Stenness on 12 May and boats would typically make two trips each week.

This was line, not net, fishing and a boat might set 100 lines, each with perhaps 1,200 hooks. A typical haul was around 200 fish, generally ling and tusk, with an average weight of around 11 pounds. The fish were then brought back to Stenness, where they would be washed, salted and dried, ready for export.

In all of this, the local laird loomed large.

The fishermen were the laird’s tenants; essentially, they were compelled to fish and pay rent, or face eviction. It was the laird’s agent who checked the catches and paid the men at the end of the season, but the payment might well not clear the debts.

In their work, Janette and Jo have incorporated readings from records of the period, which convey the harsh circumstances of the time all too clearly.

These ‘fishing tenures’, as they are known, were not the only ways in which freedoms we’d now regard as basic were denied. In parts of Shetland, as in the Highlands of Scotland (and in England, as part of the enclosure movement) landlords cleared tenants in order to make way for sheep-rearing. The ‘truck system’, which tied people into trade with local merchants – especially in relation to knitted goods – was another Shetland example.

Eventually, the insecurity and deprivation which all of this created became the subject of government inquiries; from 1886, legislation gave security of tenure to tenants in the ‘crofting counties’ of north and west Scotland, including Shetland.

Confusing Shadow with Substance is a phrase coined by a fisherman, Davie Smith, and recorded by local historian Charlie Simpson. It refers to the uncertainties involved in navigating by ‘meids’ – lining up onshore landmarks in order to locate fishing grounds or avoid hazards. This was relatively straightforward in good weather conditions, but – as Davie Smith explained – it became a lot harder with distance from land, or when there was snow or bright sunshine, and that could lead to mistakes.

The project grew out of Janette and Jo’s developing interest in the haaf fishing. They began to re-imagine and indeed re-enact activities on shore and at sea. They used video and sound, and enlisted the help of several local people, for example the volunteers who crewed the Vaila Mae for filming at sea.

As well as the boat, the Shetland Museum and Archives also provided much documentary material, as did the Tangwick Haa community museum, which is close to Stenness. A creel fisherman took the artists on his boat from Stenness beach; two ling and a cod were split and gutted, too. Janette and Jo describe all of this on one of the pages on the project website, on which this article draws.

It’s planned to show the installation at venues elsewhere over the next year or so, including the Scottish Fisheries Museum in Anstruther and the Scottish Maritime Museum in Irvine. There will also be further showings in Shetland. News about these events can be found on the project website.

Nobody who visits these showings – or who takes part in the sound walk at Stenness – can fail to be impressed by the enthusiasm, effort and, especially, creative skill that Janette and Jo have deployed in what is a fascinating and enlightening experience, which is very well worth seeking out if you have the opportunity.