A sound walk around a former fishing station at Stenness, Northmavine, Shetland. The walk invites you to explore Stenness beach as it once was – an important fishing station until the late 19th century – a unique yet elusive, part of Shetland’s heritage. The soundscape encourages you to re-imagine the beach as a hive of activity, where communities of fishermen and traders made temporary homes over the summer months. Placed in the landscape are audio fragments of sounds and voices – observations of early travellers visiting Stenness, archival documents relating to ‘haaf’ fishing, agreements binding men to the summer fishing, indebtedness, accounts of storms, loss of life, and even what the fishermen bought for their tea.
A site-specific walk created by Janette Kerr and Jo Millett, in collaboration with art collective Satsymph, it uses innovative locative technology. Access is by download to mobile phone and headphones. The beach contains twenty sound clouds for people to discover as they wander.
http://www.confusingshadowwithsubstance.co.uk/sound-walk/
Janette Kerr is a visual artist. Her work involves historical and science-based research, reflecting an interest in location, memory and materiality. Kerr is not somebody who makes meticulous studies of landscape; beyond mere topography, with a nod towards Northern Romantic traditions in landscape painting, her practice is contemporary and experimental. She has exhibited widely in the UK and abroad. She has worked on residencies in the UK, S.Ireland, Norway, and the High Arctic. She has a strong track record of initiating/working collaboratively, most recently Confusing Shadow with Substance, a film & sound installation, and Stenness Sound Walk in Shetland.