Gadderie’s new show explores relationship with the sea

An example from Confusing Shadow with Substance.

Da Gadderie in the Shetland Museum is set to host a multi-screen and sound installation exploring aspects of Shetland’s relationship with the sea.

The collaborative project between artists Janette Kerr and Jo Millett, entitled Confusing Shadow with Substance, focuses on the historic fishing station of Stenness, Northmavine.

Kerr is a painter of Shetland seas and Millett is a moving image and sound artist. Both have coinciding interests in the sea.

Working with local museums, archives and residents, the artists have investigated traces of a once-thriving fishing station where hundreds of men worked and lived for the summer months in the 18th and 19th centuries.

In a joint statement, the duo said: “Our approach considers the sea as neither inert substance, nor neutral space, and examines the close relationship between land and sea.

“Unlike the better known and preserved Fethaland fishing station, material remains at Stenness are less discernible, but it remains a portal to a place and time of great activity and sounds – a threshold between land and far haaf, and a place for imagining.

“We hope to encourage dialogue between contemporary Stenness – now described in tourist brochures as a ‘beautiful, deserted and tranquil beach’ – and its historical condition as a place of trade.”

The project promises to offer audiences an opportunity to relate past with present – bringing an awareness of the layers of memory imbedded in a place.

The exhibition opens on Saturday and runs until Sunday 27th August.