Creelers Cottage.
It has been a while since my last essay-style post and while I tally this up primarily due to my complete inability to do anything other than procrastinate 90% of the time, I’ve also been working in tandem with my partner and a few other pals on a multimedia exhibition/zine of sorts, that follows an event organised by them a few years ago, called Portobello and Joppa. The project is named after the two towns along the shoreline near Edinburgh, and looks into the role of women in fishing communities, notably during the herring season which has become iconic in Scottish history. You can find more information about the initial event here: https://cargocollective.com/cavecollectiveedinburgh/thefisherwives-installation
Danny began the project, exploring his interest in the “fishwife as a compact of many different ideas and images; the fishwife was a synonym for siren, or mermaid, or bird-creature, as in the mythological image of Melusine in Romance literature, or Thetis in Classical Mythology. The fishwife was also a hard working woman … If anything, the image is a male, Victorian construct, and in that line I am interested in what it says about male conceptions of women’s sexuality. The idea of a nymph, or Mother Goddess, being essentialised, and associated (inextricably) with water for example. The comic and absurd image of the knight looking through the keyhole at his wife, the beautiful nymph Melusine, as she transforms into a hideous, grotesque slimy slug creature!”. Danny also explained that his interest in the labour of fishing herring fishing is provoked by “early memories in Sweden of my Papa sorting through the fishing nets for the herring catch, and my Mormor gutting the fish. My Papa has suffered from serious Parkinsons disease, and in 2017 I took a film of him sorting through the nets while struggling with his tremor, the two actions somehow combining into one beautiful dance, as the fish wriggled through the string of the net, and his hands couldn’t stop shaking. He now has dementia, and has no clear memory of anything. Given this task, his muscles could still probably remember what to do with the fish in the net. …. thinking about my Papa struggling with the fishing nets, I associated this with the idea of “fingertip societies”, an archaeological concept which was developed through observing the societies of chimpanzees, and their social interactions. The chimpanzees, it was observed, literally “groomed” their societies into existence through such finger-tip, haptic actions”
Anyway, enough about Danny! Back to me!
So, here were my initial ideas:
- Physically enacting the weaving and knotting together of fishing nets as the materialisation of a diffractive approach to women’s labour, where each knot represents a new idea/concept woven together (an inter/intra-connected web or net). I’m also thinking about the net as a trap (Gell) - exploring how traps produce something out of nothing/bring something into existence/materialise an idea/connecting the abstract with the object/the known and the to be known - a moment of ontological transformation - for fish, for woman - the tautology of trap as confinement and transformation… ENTANGLEMENTS.
- Bringing it all back to technofeminist praxis and women’s work - women making a way for themselves/tech innovation! Knots and ties as metaphorical and literal! Exploring the discursive downplaying of the role of women through the very practical re-emphasis of this work!
- In Gell’s essay on the trap/net as artwork (anthropologically) he talks about the trap being a reflection of both human and animal-to-be-caught. They are designed for and by humans, but play up to traits that attract the animal - a “lethal parody of the animal’s Umwelt” (Gell’s words). The trap is neither 0 nor 1 - neither solely human nor animal, but a dual existence, a collage of perspectives. I have written before on this idea through Sadie Plant’s (with help from Irigaray) exploration on the woman as neither 0 and 1 in weaving and computers but it equally applies to the net! As a boundary between life and death, human and animal - How does this materialise in selkies/mermaids/bird-creature/MONSTERS (literally or metaphorically). neither//nor, both//and. How can we enact this existence through the net. Is this existence ‘real’ or ‘myth’? subjective or objective?
- “A bird and a fish are both egg-laying creatures – It was referenced in Louise Milne’s paper about sirens how the eggs may have represented the potential of unborn children, or impotent women, or women who had died in childbirth, and so the connection was made between the spirits of the dead and the half-fish or half-bird creatures.” - the net as connection.
- “A mermaid has no bottom orifice, no anus, no vagina.” (and Con’s mention of the Witcher, although I have not seen it) - I am reminded of irigaray again - women’s lack//the abject. As Danny said again - “the image is a male, Victorian construct, and in that line I am interested in what it says about male conceptions of women’s sexuality” - attempts to achieve subjectivity in a phallogocentric world, or monsters created as a warning for the limits of female subjectivity????!!!?!?! Does this image hold potential - what about for women who were seen to only have value in their reproductive labour - do fishing wives contradict this? they made the income, they carry the baskets, they carry their husbands (cute) - are they free from the confines of the female body!?!?!?!?!!?
- ‘Creel’ refers to the practice of weaving a basket, but also the apparatus for storing and holding sewing/weaving instruments (bobbins, spools, wefts, etc), so it feels very appropriate to be enacting this through physically weaving/knotting
- Women were the OG inventors of the computer, and also the fishing net, which has led to so many incredible tech innovations! Technofeminists rejoice!!!! How has a gendered division of labour erased this history!?!!!!!? - again referring back to point on domestic labour/freedom from reproductive labour!
- Going back to my interest in weaving and fibre crafts as metaphors for storytelling and the ontological status of the existence of the mermaid/selkie, etc.
- Oral histories and storytelling - telling a web of lies, spinning a tale, fabricating a story - gendered division of language and objective/subjective.
- referring back to the net as bringing something into existence - is it ‘truth’ or myth, as collective belief.
- oral cultures and sound/music
- Fishing communities as “tight knit” - bound together////connection//thread
- skills passed down to daughters - “family ties”
- “The Creeler’s Cottage was the cottage in which the working woman lived during the herring season. It was her safe space, her social realm.”
- gossip as women’s language - subjectivity//objectivity - negativity.
- All of this is no doubt heavily influenced by fem new materialism - multi-sensory theory n practice. Haptics, making, moving - EMBODIED KNOWLEDGE.
- reason//emotion
- mind//body
- man//woman
- As Connie will know, I have also been looking at symbolism associated with water, water goddesses, Greek mythology, but also fish scales, heads, tales, water movement, etc. as binary patterns that can be materialised as nets. I will attach some pics of the sketching of these later this week! I’m also thinking of weaving some head straps (as used to carry Creels) - like the one I made Connie, but I will experiment with fibres and materials.
