Gu’un the fish n’that
Gu'un the fish n'that is a new sound installation by East Anglian based artist Beverley Carruthers. The project takes as its starting point the cultural history and legacy of ‘the herring girls’ – migrant workers many originally from Scotland. They accompanied by land the Scottish fishing boats as they travelled south in search of shoals of herring, gutting and preparing fish for market.
This work features fragments of sound recordings drawn from oral history interviews conducted with women who themselves are the last generation of workers before the industry completely shut down.
Gansey knitting pattern used as a compositional score.
Carruthers became interested in this East Anglian history and how it connects communities up the East Coast of the country through a family connection; her grandmother had been a fisher girl in the 1970s.
From oral history interviews it emerged that they spent their leisure time knitting Ganseys (traditional fishermen’s jumpers). The gansey patterns they developed were site specific; the fishermen’s hometown would often be identified through their gansey.
These patterns are used as a musical score through which the oral histories are edited to create contemporary versions of waulking songs.
O Whalsay Lasses
O Whalsay Lasses written and composed by Rowena Whitehead using quotes from oral histories conducted by Beverley Carruthers on Whaslay Island in Shetland, Peterhead and Great Yarmouth.
Song performed by Rowena Whitehead and Filipa Pereira-Stubbs
It is part of a larger sound installation Gu'un the fish n'that.