The Sun Feeds the Wind
Beginnings - I approached Yasmin Ornsby at Hastings Fishermen’s Protection Society in 2011 to see if it would be possible to record conversations with fishermen as part of an artwork I was planning for an exhibition of Hastings Artists work at the Stade Hall.
From this beginning, Yasmin and myself, over the next few years developed the idea of creating an oral history archive to compliment the work that HFPS has done over the years with different organisations, research students, Government Marine conservation organisations and artists.
We didn’t have funding so we did this work in our own time. I only had basic recording equipment and experience in the beginning, and I learned recording and editing skills as I went along. Our plan was to capture the fishermen’s voices in informal conversational recordings and try to get some some funding to develop the project further.
An important milestone in this development was a project under the banner of ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage’ funded by ICOSMOS and partnering with Hastings Museum.
This was the first funded development of the project, as up to this point Yasmin, HFPS and myself had volunteered our time and expertise. After this several partnerships were explored to get funding and official status for the archive but without success.
Meanwhile Yasmin, the fishermen and myself, continued to make recordings when we could, in our own time with the hope that we would secure funding to complete the recordings, edit and catalogue them, to create an official archive and find a home for it.
This funding from the HLF with the support of Hastings Contemporary means that we can now complete the recordings of the Oral History, carry out the editing, and cataloguing to create an official archive.
The Sun Feeds the Wind installation at Hastings Contemporary is a wonderful showcase for this project and we hope visitors will take their time to listen to the stories, and watch the unique and beautiful film sequences created for the installation by moving image makers Nichola Bruce and Sam Sharples. What you are seeing is an amalgamation of many years of their videos of the fishermen and the Stade beach, with recent footage taken for this commission.
There are 3 sound points, the central one is composed of 2 hours of extracts of different conversations recorded with the Fishermen since 2011. Each conversation is 6-14 minutes long with short soundscape interludes between each one.
The themes of the extracts cover heritage, family history, the practical work of fishing, skills and knowledge, and the future of sustainable beach launched fisheries affected by changing political and marine conservation regulations.
The sound points situated at each end of the gallery are 2 different soundscapes with short voice clips from the main voice extracts. The aim is that these soundscapes provide a context for the central sound work. The tracks have different soundscape themes - ‘Through the Water.’, and 'The working Beach’, composed from recordings made by myself of different water and beach soundscapes, and sounds from the recorded underwater during a fishing trip by Sam Sharples.
We anticipate that listeners and viewers will visit the installation for different lengths of time, but hope however short or long their stay in the gallery their experience is inspired by the stories, the heritage and the skills of our Fishing Fleet, and the need to preserve it’s heritage and help to insure it’s future.
Jane Bruce designed and created the wonderful setting for the sound and video in the gallery in collaboration with Yasmin, HFPS and myself. Annie Millar scenic artist created the wall painting which depicts a graphic interpretation of the marine chart for this coastal stretch. The wall painting was not intended as an accurate chart but includes markings that echo those on a marine chart for this area that the fishermen use.
The Fishermen have made the seating and wooden frames for the screens, made the monkey fist knots and lent nets and helped construct the central projection screen.
Yasmin Ornsby and myself are the lead contributors as artists in the concept, design and creation of the installation.
I have edited and composed voice tracks and soundscapes from her
recordings of the Fishermen made with Yasmin Ornsby, from 2011 - 2025
The Audio Visual design and installation has been lead by Jonathan Murphy, and Harvey Summers mastered the audio and advised on the audio design for the gallery.
I am are very fortunate to have such a talented, committed creative team to make this happen, with the continuing support of the team at Hastings Contemporary, and
funding from The Heritage Lottery.
