The sun feeds the wind, audio-visual installation

Lucia Scazzocchio, audio producer and curator of the  XMTR Audio Arts Festival met Jude Montague at the Hastings Contemporary and we went to sit by the fishing boats. Here as the tide swelled and we watched the fishing crews at work and discussed the exhibition.

The conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Jude: So we’re sitting Lucia and I are sitting on the stones outside the Hastings contemporary where we have just seen the exhibition.

Lucia: and we’re literally sitting amongst the fishing boats, which is, which feels kind of apt.

Jude:The whole exhibition is about this place where the fishing boats come in from the sea onto this pebble beach. They’re dragged up or pushed up by the waves, and, yeah, they land here and set off from here. It’s a life that’s on the way out, really. The audio installation we’ve seen feels a bit like an elegy.

Lucia: There’s a lot of kind of reminiscence, so sad in a way. It felt this is the end of something rather than a celebration, I mean, it’s a celebration, but of something that’s dying.

Jude: It’s a beautiful way of life, and for the people who are still doing it, it’s still just as real as any other time. It’s still happening. It’s still here now, but we’re definitely, as a kind of looking at an industry, we’re looking at the end of many centuries of this, I the going out to sea in multiple small boats. This is one of the last beach based fishing fleets. I think it’s the oldest one in Europe.

Lucia: It’s really old. That was interesting. There were these oral history recordings that were woven together to create a narrative, and all the voices were definitely more mature voices. That new generation just isn’t there, and this is obviously quite representative of where we’re at. This is the last generation to get I mean, maybe it will. It will still exist going forward, but on a very small scale, with a kind of new generation of fishing people. It feels like this is the last remnants of and there was definitely a kind of dreamy nostalgia

Jude: I think that there’s so much against the people who actually work in the fishing fleets and things pressures that we’re not aware of. If you’re on the outside and you only know about them if you speak to participants, fisherpeople, or read or listen first hand accounts. The pressures of litigation and licensing and all those kind of pressures on the people who actually work in fishing every day. There’s a new regulation and a new fee, it seems, every day in this practical vocation. It’s good to hear the audio stories in this context.

Lucia: So what did you think of the installation in the exhibition space as a whole?

Jude: Hmm good question. I enjoyed the engagement with the storytelling. I appreciated the real voices. That is the strongest thing. I could have had more voices, to be honest. Overall, I think it works very well. It was immersive. I loved the artistic use of video. The nets were beautiful hanging as a projection screen, very diegetic. It was a really comfortable place to see and enjoy the audio, but I could have done with kind of even more stories, having personally read some of the Fisher men’s oral narratives from the nearby Fishermen’s Museum. I know there’s more, far more stories, but of course, the curators have got to be really selective. So I understand the process of people who’ve put it together, the work involved and I’m really glad they have done it at this time.

Lucia: Yeah, I guess the other thing is, because it’s a very male, traditionally, a very male occupation. And it’s, you know, people of a certain generation, it’s quite hard to distinguish between the voices, also, because, there is an overall Hastings accent. So it feels like there’s probably a lot more voices than we think, because lots of people sound quite similar.

Jude: An oral history does tend to be like older people looking back. That’s part of the nature of what you’re doing anyway.

Lucia: That’s true. And I guess you know a lot of it was, is about the practical elements of explaining what being part of a fleet, being a local fisherman. There’s, a lot of explaining of what you actually have to do, and the technical elements of it.

Jude: Yes. There was quite a lot of the audio that I listened to that was quite explanatory. You do this, and then you do this, and the boxes come in, some explaining the process of dispensing fish as you come up on the beach. I know, there’s plenty more stories to hear and read, and hopefully this will give people the desire to chase down some more of them.

Lucia: Absolutely. And a lot of work. We both wish it was on for longer and free access. I hope it will be extended. And the XMTR Festival happens end of September so we will be able to reflect back on the show then.

Lucia Scazzocchio runs Social Broadcasts where she produces socially engaged audio work and is also the founder of the XMTR.FM a curated sonic storytelling platform for independent audio makers to share their work and the associated XMTR Audio Arts Festival hosted accross multiple venues in and around St Leonards-on-Sea, 26^th-28^th September.

https://www.socialbroadcasts.co.uk/

https://www.xmtr.fm/

https://www.xmtr.fm/festival

 

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