What Has To Be Done

A series of voyages around the Western Isles of Scotland, 2013, 2014, 2016.

‘What Has To Be Done’ (WHTBD) was a series of voyages around the Western Isles of Scotland. It brought together a group of artists to address questions about sustainability and the environment and respond culturally to the dramatic effects of climate change.

The project drew on the legacy of the artist Joseph Beuys and Richard De Marco, who organised a series of voyages on The Marques around the British coast line in the late 1970s. They brought together key figures from the art world to critically address ‘man’s’ relationship with nature. The title, ‘What Has To Be Done’, explicitly refers back to the question ‘What is to be done’ posed by Beuys in 1980 in relation to nuclear power and alternative technologies.

I took part in the voyages in 2013, 2014 and 2016, on board the Lady of Avenel, a 102 square foot rigged brigantine.

DAY 4: Monday, 22 July, 2013

We set off on an 8 hour motor to Barra and Canna through the East Hebridean Sea. I made my first attempt at climbing the rigging whilst underway. It was a terrifying ordeal at first but once I was properly harnessed I was okay. I was surprised by the difficulty of ascending the first 2 or 3 rungs of the rope ladder. The rope is quite slack and far apart vertically. It was a real effort to lift the second leg up by pushing down on the first. The rope began to judder with my efforts and I felt really scared. There was no way that I could carry on, so I came back down. SF suggested that attaching a line to the back of my harness as an extra safety measure. This gave me the confidence to try again and I made the ascent all the way to the first platform. The view from the crows nest made it all worth while and descending was much easier.

I made a ‘topology of the offing’, capturing the transient movement of the ship through ink drawings. I suspended a pen from the ceiling of the ship and placed a sheet of paper beneath it. I watched as the pen moved, as if by magic, recording the ship’s sway in relation to the winds and tides.

DAY 5: Tuesday, 23 July, 2013

The sea is so calm today the pen is hardly moving. I left it drawing whilst I took a turn at the helm. I am immediately aware of the seascape and can sense that where the water is breaking there are hidden rocks along the shoreline. I enjoy the thrill of holding the ship against the wind and the tides “I become the ship, the ship becomes me”.

DAY 6: Wednesday, 24 July, 2013

Spent over 1½ hours at the wheel this afternoon. I set up a drawing to coincide with my shift. I set up several drawings today as the rolling and pitching is so extreme and the drawings really record that. Placed the stone on the drawing that one of the crew had brought back for me from Barra.

DAY 7: Thursday, 25th, 2013

I set up a drawing at about 9.30 am. It is so calm in comparison to yesterday the pen is hardly moving. I left the drawing for the two hours whilst I was at the helm. The light and the flat calm of the sea are incredibly beautiful. There is the smell of fresh bread emanating from the galley. The silver greys of the sea and the land, the silvery sunlight reflecting on the water – life does not get better than this.

On my return, I exhibited my sounding line as sculpture in the Power of the Sea Exhibition, RWA, Bristol. Annotated cotton ribbon’s marked the water’s varied depth.

The sounding line is more of an artistic research approach rather than a scientific one. I used a thin rope marked with knots at one fathom (6 feet) intervals so that I could ascertain the depth of the sounding. It works on that level but not to give me accurate readings that could be used for navigational purposes.

Fathom: v. measure the depth of water “an attempt to fathom the ocean”.

In 2014, I set sail around the Western Isles of Scotland aboard the Lady of Avenel with a group of Chinese artists (eight men and one woman). I once again sought to record the voyage in a Ship’s Log; each entry beginning with a geographical location, Longtitude and Latitude. Writing a daily journal allowed me to organise and process my experiences and connected me to the women who had also sailed and kept detailed ship’s logs, such as Mary Brewster who sailed with her husband on board a whaling ship.

As an artistic method of charting the voyage I utilised the interior spaces of the vessel to make ship drawings and to photograph from the inside to the outside of the ship through both the port and starboard portholes (the apertures or eyes of the ship) and to further explore the boundaries of the exterior spaces to create a topology of the offing.

DAY 1: Saturday, 19 July 2014, Oban - 56.412°N 5.4721°W

This morning I met an artist in her eighties, who lived on an island close to Oban. She asked me what I did and I explained I was a PhD researcher and that I was interested in women and the ship. I told her about my forthcoming voyage to the Arctic Circle to follow in the wake of Louise Arner Boyd. She replied, “My dear you don’t follow in anyone’s wake, you make your own.” This advice changed the course and intention of my research. How do I make my own wake?

DAY 3: Monday, 21 July 2014, Tobermory to Knoydart - 57.07284° N -5.51239° W

Woke up in the early hours and got up to watch the sunrise. Beautiful day with blue sky reflected in the sea. The swell was impressive and the ship was swaying and rolling. Some of the Chinese artists are suffering from seasickness.

I am making daily ship drawings in the saloon on a side bench that has to be cleared away every meal time so I can’t set the drawing space up permanently. The drawings are much more physical and dramatic than those made on board ROCK. Presumably the relative instability of our sailing creates more complex, energetic and exciting marks. No stillness here.

DAY 6: Thursday, 24 July 2014, Mallaig Harbour, 57.0038° N 5.8272° W

Today we had to again dock at Mallaig harbour to see if the parts had come to repair the anchor winch as it was still not working. I photographed through the portside porthole the view of the Mallaig harbour wall.

Today I asked the Chinese artists, the crew and the Skipper to each write down three words that captured the feeling of the experience of the voyage. I put together a poem using all the words we had each written.  

DAY 7: Friday, 25 July 2014, At Sea

Attempting to take photos for research purposes therefore having to decide on some form of structure or rules. Photographing through the confined spaces in proximity to the portholes (especially the port side located outside in the deck toilet meant I could only just get enough distance away to include the entire circumference. The starboard porthole was also restricted by the narrow width of the companionway and dictated the position from which I could make my photographs. I noticed that even though the photographs were made within moments of each other, the resolution of the starboard porthole was not as good as from the port side. I realised that I was photographing through glass causing a refraction of light on the starboard side and that the port side was permanently left open. On the only day it rained really heavily I had to shut both portholes and discovered that the glass on the port side (the deck toilet) was frosted glass thus totally obscuring the view. I made a photograph anyway, a moment of temporary blindness that forced me to both listen to, and imagine the sea.

DAY 8: Saturday, 26 July 2014, Coll (Loch Tuath) - 56.6246° N 6.5619° W

I have been continuing to take photographs of the voyage viewing inside/outside through the eyes or lens of the ship – an aperture to see the ocean through. The portholes have become a central motif in the artworks both on board my own ship (ROCK) and now on the Lady Avenel.

Photographing the horizon from a moving ship is not easy. I wanted to hold the line of the horizon straight, however, I discovered this is impossible as not only do I have to deal with the constant movement of the ship, the fetch of the tides, but it also appears that the panoramic horizon is curved. It is beyond this curve, this edge that leaves an aporia, what the ancients thought of as the edge of the world. It still feels like this when there is no land or any other vessel in sight. It is amazing that in the 21st c it is still possible to feel that sense of aloneness or separateness - of not hearing or reading any news, no internet and no mobile phone connections for much of the time. Even when it was possible I declined from connecting with the rest of the world. Withdrawing on water as a way of isolating myself and even though there were other people on board it was possible to withdraw into myself.

The ship drawings are the evidence of the passage of time and of the passage of our voyage. I continued to collect stones from the tideline, or on the shore (the beach, or littoral) and then brought them back on board. With the stone as an interruption on the paper, the pen no longer moves freely across the surface of the paper - disrupted from a natural flow it seems to hesitate, to hover, a form of suspended waiting. And then the sudden movement of the ship releases the pen and it appears to caress the form of the stone/pebble making a gentle tapping sound as it comes into contact. The inanimate object becomes the centre of a strange, sensual dance leaving the traces of its choreography articulated and directed by the movement of the ship in relation to the sea.

The Skipper now trusts me to manage the sailing of the ship in the open ocean and the First Mate watched me for a while and then complimented me on my ability to chart a straight course. It feels so great to be doing something that others think I am good at. I would like to do more that just instinctively sail the ship – I intend to develop my skills in chart plotting so that I can more fully understand what I need to do. I want to become a knowledgeable sea woman.

I enjoy sailing on ‘Lady’ when the sails are up and we are harnessing the wind and the tides - like Mary Lang describes her ship in full sail on her first voyage. The moment the engine is switched off and there are only the sounds of the sails flapping the wind and the slap of the waves. I feel so at one when I am at the helm – I become the ship, the ship becomes me.

DAY 9: Sunday, 27 July 2014: Anchored at Crinnan

Keeping watch, and steering alone wearing my go-pro camera, one becomes acutely aware of everything around ; ships in the far distance (in the offing), changes to the wind direction and the water surface. I spot the occasional seal and there are numerous seabirds

DAY 10: Monday, 28 July: 2014, Crinan – Oban - 56.09089° N 5.5584° W

I took a model ship kite on the voyage with the intention of flying it from the back of the ship whilst out at sea. The blue ship kite was simple to construct the difficulty came when I tried to fly the kite, instead of ‘sailing’ into the sky it did a number of loops and turns before landing back down on the deck of the ship. I knew from past experience that it was the tension of the string attached to the main body of the kite that needed adjusting for the kite to fly properly. However, unfortunately the Skipper and First Mate insisted that they knew what needed to be done to make it fly. I told them I was okay and knew what to do. Clearly they didn’t think I did and took the kite off me and attempted to rectify the problem. Eventually I managed to reclaim my kite and make the adjustments to the strings myself… I launched my kite and watched it sail into the sky.

Suddenly the wind increased and combined with the speed of the vessel the string became unbearably taut in my hands, the string was cutting into the flesh below my little finger – it was extremely painful and I had to let it go.

The Skipper stopped the engine and even jumped into the RIB to go back to the place where my kite ship sank. There was no sight of it at anywhere. My ship kite had sunk without trace.

WHTBD 2016 was with a group of Chinese businessmen who were using the space of the voyage to learn about Western Art. They spent most of their time inside the ship looking at images of artworks by famous artists on a projector screen. The weather was diabolical – it rained almost every day, twenty-four hours a day and we had wind and stormy seas. It was navigationally impossible to land or even to sail to most of our intended destinations in the Western Isles of Scotland .

I again asked everyone on board to write three words that captured their experience of the voyage and composed a second poem. On the 2014 voyage, the crew experienced the ship as a means of getting from place to place and the words they chose reflected this. On the 2016 voyage the words chosen reflect the elemental experience of being incarcerated in the ship on stormy seas. The poem was later exhibited on the gallery wall in Today Beijing Museum, China, part of the exhibition What Has To Be Done, January 2017.