A Multidimensional Factbook from Shetland and North Uist
John Hartley November 2010
Background
This work is commissioned by Shetland Arts, in partnership with Taigh Chearsabhagh, North Uist and The Swan Trust, as research and development exploring the feasibility of an artist in residence on board The Swan, a herring drifter built in 1900. The residency is being considered for the duration of the Tall Ships Race 2011.
The resultant publication, by artist researcher John Hartley, considers the creative potential of such a residency by addressing the interdependent social, environmental and personal realms that animate the seas through which the Swan will travel and the shores from which she will take her crew and history. It is hoped that this publication holds some interest in its own right, as it has been approached as a creative work, and that it will support those developing the residency further. Finally, it is hoped that this publication might also engage those with other interests in Shetland and North Uist by offering some taste of the currents and echoes that reverberate through this nautical territory.
Contents
Background
Discussion Inversion Waves of Change Carrier Waves Cycles The Need to Connect
Additional Data and Hypothetical Projects
Acknowledgements
3 Take a Good Look: Coastal Residence in North Uist
4 Inversion Edge to Centre
Shetland and North Uist are very different islands, but both are often perceived as occupying marginal space.
Shetland is home to the most northerly settlement in the UK (Skaw) and the most northerly land (Out Stack). Are these places at the very tip? Likewise North Uist is seen by many as a retreat from the heart of the modern world. What are the significance and validity of such perceptions, and are there better ways of seeing such locations?
Both have strong maritime links to locations around the Atlantic basin; from Scandinavia and Mainland UK to Iceland, Canada and the USA. Rather than being at the edge of a land-centric mindset, they might better be seen as central to a North Atlantic mindset. This is not to say they are mainstream though. Conditions can be very different from life in the middle of a landmass. Although fifty feet above the sea, the Muckle Flugga lighthouse men often found fish on the roof after strong storms.
5 Inversion Negative to Positive
How can we hear the life of the sea? How might we learn to read the waves as clearly as bus drivers do road markings? Not by counting the coast as the end of land, but rather as the start of sea; inverting subject and background of land maps.
Who or what else shares such a Different locations support perspective? different stocks and require different fishing 'gear'. Coastal The Arctic Tern above the species prefer different types waves, commuting annually of sea bed. Open ocean or between North and South Poles? 'pelagic' species live, in turn, in different zones with Fishing fleets on the surface different ecologies. The that hunt wild stocks of fish 'epipelagic' (or sunlit) zone below? descending to 650ft supports most life in the oceans, with plankton the base of the food
Land=1, Water=0 becomes Land = 0, Water = 1
6 chain. As you descend up to a deep, then the Nolso-Flugga kilometre to the mesopelagic communications line traversing (twilight) zone, life becomes the kilometre deep waters more marginal. More distant and between Shetland and Faroe deeper waters also have shelves would tell a rare story. bathypelagic (midnight) and This trench plays a key role in abyssopelagic (lower midnight) North Atlantic water flow, with zones and occasionally, the 5 currents of differing salinity almost unknown hadopelagic from Arctic, Norwegian and zone, named after the Atlantic sources sliding past underworld. each other in the high pressure If we could 'listen to the lives' sub-zero dakness. of the cables we send to the
Waves of change
From Subsistence to Industry to Information We are moving away from a time of centralist command and control to a distributed way of life. This can be see in many spheres, from the production and consumption of culture to manufacturing, employment practices and the wider economy. Alvin and Heidi Toffler have, among others, described these changes (for example in their books Future Shock, The Third Wave, Powershift). They talk of three successive waves in history.
War and Anti-War Toffler, Alvin and Heidi (1993) Warner Books Future Shock Toffler, Alvin (1970) Bantam Books
7 Subsistence monoculture can prove First Wave economies are detrimental to globally dependent upon agriculture and recognised areas of high other small scale subsistence biodiversity such as the rare production. This can be recognised costal regions where shell in historic fishing practices and fragment and peat mix to crofting. The Swan had its heyday provide fertile terrain known as in what the Tofflers would call First machair. 70% of the world's Wave conditions. machair is in the Uists and Harris. Industry Culturally, the Tofflers observe Second Wave economies are that second wave economies expressed a large amount of industrial in nature, out- interest in the manufacture of competing first wave cultures national, rather than regional or through 'economies of scale', local, identity. machine-derived savings on The industrial age was the time employment costs and optimised duing which the Victorians processes that allow little developed ideas of Scottish deviation from short-term, high- nationhood, the British Empire profit strategies. These changes and other nationally-framed have affected fishing and ideas that still underpin many crofting, pushing people habits of perception. towards conglomeration and large scale holdings in both. Information This industrial approach allows According to the Tofflers, Third less flexibility. Investment in Wave economies are driven by quotas and licences pressurises the production of information. fishermen to specialise and Elsewhere, Manuel Castells has invest heavily in a single niche. expanded further on the idea of the 'Network Society' Previously they might move which invests in and derives between stocks as they sensed value from from intellectual they were becoming depleted. capital. Connectivity and Equally, agriculture is 'locked in' distributed production and to narrower modes of production. consumption are part and Margins are minimal and parcel of information
The Rise of the Network Society, Manuel Castells (1996) Wiley
8 economies. Artists have become interested in collective production, exploring issues of Intellectual Property and authorship in digital and 'socially engaged' practice. They have explored multiple identities and shifting boundaries that skirt over nations through shifting, temporary or subversive ways of w o r k i n g
Abroad in successive waves of boom and The significance of what bust, how do the skills, sensibilities and have been renamed the memories embodied in local crafts and 'Cultural Industries' traditions support resilience for future changes in an uncertain times? information economy too. Due to their role as primary producers and interpreters of 'information' of many sorts, cultural production can be argued to occupy a more significant role than in industrial economies (which sometimes grouped 'culture' alongside 'leisure' as time away from making things that count).
9 Although perhaps not at the Taigh Chearsabhagh is a hub of leading edge of information production for the Western technology in the same way as Isles, driving cultural silicon valley, the locations investigation, connecting and considered here are nonetheless exchanging skills and providing sites of significant regional a range of information services. connectivity and sites of Shetland's cultural activity is significance for cultural central to the perception of a well- information of many sorts. resourced and forward thinking While key locations in community with a global diaspora industrial, Second Wave, economies are overwhelmingly stretching to New Zealand. urban, that is not necessarily What is the potential for locations the case in Third Wave such as North Uist and Shetland economies. within such changing times?
Can the arts help us reconsider the connections between man and land ?
10 Connectivity in time
How easily can information societies coexist with information that pertains to first and second wave economies? Information economies are dependent upon ideas, narratives and data and an information dependent future must still contain the echoes Some indigenous cultures believe and ripples of previous ways of we travel through time backwards. seeing and doing; both This explains why we don't know physically and culturally. what's coming yet can see our own Perhaps particular aproaches to wake clearly.
How can we better understand the connectivity between the contemporary and the historic?
11 cultural information increase our connections and possibilities and, as such can be seen as a form of resilience. Greylag goose scaring on crofts is now informed by scientific data on population numbers, and insight into how crofting practices impact upon rare corn bunting populations. But it benefits equally from non-scientific information such as a traditional 'feel' for how the goose behaves; connectivity through information that is technical as well as cultural.
The Swan The Swan, a Victorian herring drifter, is a pre- industrial economic artefact displaced by steam and steel.
Fore Halliard Tackle, Peak Halliard, Throat Halliard, Fore Sheet, Aft Spring, Boom Guy, Jib Sheet, Mizzen Halliard, Stern Rope
She carries information.
12 During the Tall Ships Race 2011, she will sail between leading countries in the information age carrying a crew brought up on, and carrying global, mobile telecommunications. She will be moving through waters changing in temperature, salinity, fish stock and pollutants due to globalised trade and pressures. She is a living embodiment of the connectivity between these three 'waves'.
The Swan is
rubbed raw gagged strangled pinched and corroded grazed and split
by the forces that drive her
Can we think more creatively about connectivity between species, connectivity between eras.
13 Future and past calling each other into existence, by neither being real
14 An anthropology of time Turner, as found in wild places; Our own contemporary places untouched by foundation myth (and myths modernity. But is the past so aren't the same as fictions, lost? Is nature so separate? indeed, they can be profound Scientific research tells us truths) is that our technology that fur seal abundance is not has denied us our connection to directly related to availability nature. This is the driving of prey species, rather it tails belief behind romantic art, a off sharply at a certain point as desire to reconnect with the stocks decrease. And in times sublime of Wordsworth and of surplus it flattens out.
Exactly the same pattern of response to abundance is seen when looking at another hunting marine mammal, man in pelagic fisheries.
A spotter's guide to marine hunting mammals
15 Cycles
The economies of these islands have moved through many cycles of boom and bust within living memory and their archeology is testament to similar, early cycles of realised potential, growth, vulnerability and collapse.
Oil money According to one Shetland resident who remembers the 50s and 60s well, at that time, there was 'hardly a ferry that The 'Klondike' left the island without a whole Pelagic fishing experienced family on it, leaving for a boom referred to as the elsewhere'. But since then, the 'Klondike' when larger influx of oil revenues has operations bought up effected a remarkable impact entitlements to fishing upon Shetland and it has allowances. The result was enjoyed a period of growth. fewer, larger boats. The Employment is high and its Whalsay fleet is the cultural and sporting facilities stronghold of pelagic fishing are enviable. in the Shetland islands.
16 Creel Fishing Monday, from where the Those without the capacity to catch is transported to increase the scale of their markets in France and operations were unable to Spain. The lorry returns on compete (for instance Wednesday. Grimsay fishermen who rolled their boats straight from the Scallops moor) and had to move into Each catch is found in a creel fishing, prawns, scallops different location. Lobster and other niches. However tend to be found close to there is no meaningful UK shore; crab like sandy or market for North Sea prawns, muddy sea beds; prawn which have a hard shell. The prefer mud and gravelly UK consumer prefers soft- scallop beds are found shelled, farmed king prawns dotted around. The shipped from SE Asia. UK condition and location of catches landed in North Uist this varying submarine are collected by articulated terrain determines the work lorry every weekend. The of the smaller boats. One lorry leaves on Sunday, overfished scallop bed near arrives in Poole, Dorset on Lewis was closed for 22
17 years because of overfishing. more significantly in food Once re-opened, it was found processing as a stabilising that starfish had demolished ingredient. the scallops there. UK scallops Seaweed collection once still demand a premium formed a small, but helpful relative to competing (often part of the North Uist Chilean) produce due to their economy, combining with large size and roe (when in crofting or seasonal fishing season). However, that price to make a living income. is the same as it was fifteen However, competition from years ago. Chilean alginate production (thought by some to be less Alginate fresh) undercut the North Once a significant industry in Uist producers and North Uist, with a factory at destabilised the market. Lochmaddy, alginate was This crisis encouraged extracted from very fresh chemists to artificially seaweed (bladderwrack and synthesise alginate, ending kelp also known as 'tangle') the trade completely. for use as a fertiliser, and
18 Crofting The way crofts themselves are m a n a g e d is influenced by a Whether for crofters who do a range of factors. little fishing, or for fishermen Again,pressure for industrial that do a little crofting, mixing upscaling leads a move away dependence upon land and sea from traditional 'stooks' (a way historically provided a flexible, of air drying crops in the field) seasonal yield in a range of towards silage making. This island environments. Crofts doesn't favour marginal (strips of farming land) were populations of corn buntings. allocated after the 1886 Crofters experience further Crofters Act, traditionally in a pressure from the greylag goose way that ensured they all had a which can easily destroy arable mix of rich arable machair and crops, increasing the incentive upland grazing ideal for a to make silage rather than risk complementary and seasonal stooks, even though the mix of crops and livestock. resultant feed is not as rich.
The goose influences the crofters, the crofter influences the corn bunting. Global trade can influence them all.
19 Previously, sheep rearing For many nowadays, crofting can complem ented fishing or other only offer a small part of a living activities, with heather-fed wage and is mixed with other mutton having a very good jobs or carried on just for the flavour. Sheep prices are now love of it. Those that do live off experiences a surge, having crofting have multiple holdings, dropped to miserably low with between half a dozen and a prices in recent years. This dozen crofts suggested as being increase in price is attibuted necessary to 'make a go of it'. to Chinese markets buying up Industrial increase in costs and the New Zealand market, competition means revenue leaving opportunity for UK cannot keep track with the cost reared lamb. of living.
20 Smoked Fish Public Sector Another niche that has expanded The public sector is a major recently and that continues to grow employer in Shetland. The is the smoking of locally caught fish, Shetland CharitableTrust, which can be delivered by mail operating with funds from oil order. Legislation designed to revenues currently offers some improve practices in mail order degree of insulation from shipment of meat was austerity measures which are considered for extension to mail leading to contraction elsewhere. order fish. This has been successfully resisted by the fish The Need to Connect smoking industry UK wide, which As one change occurs, its effects argues that it is inappropriate can be felt in many other for such a different business and would destroy the industry.
21 places. Deciding the boundaries of impact is a convention essential to time- pressed operational practice, but those boundaries should not be Scientists 'listen' to marginal species and top seen as absolute. predators so that they can hear the faint Modern compartmentalised tremors in an otherwise clouded picture of species interdependency. mindsets fail to sufficiently comprehend many issues. For instance, climate change respects no disciplinary boundary, being an issue that bridges sciences, politics, economies and poetries. Likewise, attempts to move to sustainable ways of living will depend equally upon archive and invention. Isn't this the sort of bridging and connectivity that the arts do most naturally; poetic contextualisation for an information age? Could art made on board The Swan help us listen to such realities in more appropriate ways, tuning into the trembling connections across disciplines, realms and dimensions?
22 Changes in sea temperature fathers could read the airs and affect plankton bloom. Plankton waves by feel. can affect the viscosity of the sea, even to the point of What skills and intelligence make damping storms. Plankton also sense when abroad on such a provide the main food source swell of history? for sand eels, upon which Is it efficient to focus on one puffins and other auks depend. strategy and learn nothing else? Shetland's rich seabird Might seamingly unimportant population is one of the drivers intelligence become essential for for inbound tourist visits. some future niche? What role Modern fishing benefits from hi- might traditional knowledge and tech data feeds for weather and skills play in an information age, fish shoals, but modern if they are retained? fishermen lament that their
The moon draws the tides, the sun raises the wind, the land moves the wind, the wind writes on the waves. How easy is it to see these things?
23 Additional Data and Hypothetical Projects
1. North Atlantic knitting 2. Long Wave – multimedia A hypothetical project towards marine data jamming an animated cultural enquiry. Exhibits in Shetland Museum Using a range of equipment, and Archive, show changing senses and perceptual trends in textile design. Red modes, build 'data feeds' colours were popular in 1930s that can be streamed, knitting. Browns replaced mixed, responded to and them slowly over the next interpreted by a range of decade or so and the changes collaborators. Outputs could continue. Using archival be a maritime web radio images of change in knitting station 'Long Wave Web styles, the project would build Radio', hosting sound, a computer animation showing images, text and vblog. Data the drift in taste in colour and collection could involve: pattern over generations. hydrophones recording ocean echoes, plankton grabs in partnership with academic Marine Research collaborators, microscopic or satelite imagery, temperature or salinity measurement, emotional state of observed marine life, or crew.
Photographs of textiles held in Shetland Museum and Archive. Photographs of houses, moors and skies about Shetland
Additional Data: Place Names of Shetland and North Uist Big Kiln, Leod's Ford, Point of the Deer's Grass, Loch of the Counsellor, Point of the Evil One, Bay of the River's Mouth, Kyle's Homestead, Martin's Homestead, Homestead of the Marsh, Large Township, Homestead of the Chapel,
24 3. Mapa Mara
The Mapa Mundi (world map) was a medieval representation of the known world. What would it mean to consider a Mapa Mara or map of the sea? Whose information would be relevant? Scientific, folkloric, animal, industrial? Would it be written, collected, or smelled?
Even if it were to be drawn on Mapa Mara v1: a projection which distorts paper it would be very different continents rather than oceans from a mapa mundi.
...Additional Data: Place Names, continued Ranald's Homestead, Fort Island, Keel Timber Point, Place of Cairns, Island of the Short Cut, Cliff Island, Slope Bay, Rough Island, Garry of the Carrots, Yellow Burn, Yellow Homestead, Green Croft, Grim's Point, Grim's Island, Gravel Island,
25 4. Timed photographs documenting a walk in North Uist
11:01 Leave hire car. Starlings on solar powered lamp post 11:07 Higher ground 11:08 Large black hairy caterpillar with red markings 11:11 Clear sky 11:12 Airplane, heading maybe northwest 11:13 Pond of green spongey moss 11:18 Another caterpillar 11:18 Airplane, maybe heading northwest 11:20 Heather still in flower 11:23 Cairn on top of Crògearaidh Beag 11:24 Siteline to next peak 11:42 More caterpillars 11:46 More caterpillars on west side of peak 11:48 Airplane heading maybe northwest 11:59 Spongey red moss 11:59 Broken fenceline 12:01 No clouds 12:02 Airplane maybe heading northwest 12:05 Low point between peaks. No more caterpillars 12:05 Boundary line between lower grass and higher heather 12:05 Cloud and airplane maybe heading northwest 12:13 Top of Crògearaidh Mor 12:15 Lines of quartz 12:18 Own shadow on landscape below 12:33 Stag antler 12:35 Deer 12:41 Clover (perhaps) in flower 12:46 Red water drains from the hill 12:47 Airplane maybe heading northwest 12:47 Another airplane also maybe heading northwest 12:51 Deer tracks 13:03 Stone quarry, closed 13:04 Injured pigeon walking around in long grass near quarry fence 13:07 Clouds cast shadows on hills 13:12 Sheep 13:16 Robin 13:24 Return to hire car
...Additional Data: Place Names, continued High Stone, Distant Column, Long Plot of Land, The Three Streams, The Horse Head, Deep Dale, Rocky Place Where Otters Come to Drink, Rodney's Ballast,
26 5. Goldcrest Standard further, the value of stirling could be Goldcrest Standard is a hypothetical connected to available ecological project that takes as its starting resources (in particular the number of point the observation that a goldcrests). Since the abandonment of goldcrest has the same weight as a the Gold Standard in 1931, linking two pence piece. It proposes issuing stirling to supply of gold, the a range of island coins and banknotes exchange value of currency has been of unusual denominations, featuring unrelated to the value of any physical regional wildlife. resource. Pegging the value of stirling to ecological resources could offer a Stage 1 more stable economic system. It Scientists speak of 'totemic' species would also move environmental that have an increased value. This is expenses such as pollution from being partly due to how their dependence what economists term 'externalities', on other species in the food web that is having no impact upon the means they can act as a signal for price of exchange goods, to being a changing conditions for other true determinant of exchange value. species. But the term is also used to signify their wider public value due to cultural beliefs and affections held for that particular species. Monetary equivalence would initially be selected for other species, based upon their adult body mass, and in proportion to the goldcrest standard (where 3.5 grams of biomass relates Regulus Regulus, UK's smallest bird to two pence). How would Goldcrest Standard affect In accordance with 'Goldcrest Standard' our totemic understanding of non- 2pence = a goldcrest human species and how we ascribe £1 = a mackerel (0.5kg) value to them over time? £5 = a great skua (1.3-1.5kg) £500 = a grey seal (150-200kg) Stage 2 £50,000 = a minke whale (15000kg) To extend the hypothetical project 1/500,000 pence = zooplankton (100 µg)
...Additional Data: Place Names, continued Boggy, Grey Stone, Peat Road, Saltwater Road, The Ditches, Small Meadow, Small Sea Cave Into Which The Tide Flows, Broken Heads, Distant Column, Where Charlie Draws Up His Boat
27 Acknowledgements
I wish to express my thanks for the generous and hospitable reception from so many interesting people, which has made this research not only possible, but enjoyable. In particular Clair Aldington of Shetland Arts Development Agency and Andy Mackinnon of Taigh Chearsabhagh, but also:
Elizbeth Angus, Shetland Family History Society Jack Barclay Flugga Boats Professor Ian Boyd, Sea Mammal Research Unit Jaimie Boyle, RSPB Juan Brown, SNH Peter Campbell, Swan Trust Kristi Cumming, Veer North Lauren Dougton, Shetland Amenities Trust Chris Dyer, Shetland Amenities Trust Johanne Ferguson, SNH Ross Gazey, Pure Energy John Goodlad, Swan Trust Mary Harman Melanie Henderson, Sail Training Shetland Tony Humbleyard, Artist Kallin Shellfish Ivan MacDonald Macduff Boatyard Rory Macguillivray Ronald John Maclain, Grimsay Boatshed Helen Moncrieff, RSPB Brian Rabbitts Shetland Catch Shetland Museum and Archive Callum Stewart Richard Wemyss, Shetland Arts
All images copyright John Hartley, except graph of fur seals by krill biomass, courtesy of University of St. Andrews Sea Mammal Research Unit.
To limit the carbon emissions associated with this project, the research was undertaken without flying. Rather than being a 'cost', the added time needed for rail and ferry travel contributed to the task of slow perception at the heart of this research.
28 29