'Newhaven’s Last Working Fishwife / Queen Victoria’s Funeral Procession', was exhibited at the group exhibition 'Feminist Methods'.
Feminist Methods was an exhibition curated by Marita Fraser and James Hutchinson and displayed in the Annex Gallery, Glasgow School of Art, 23 September 2024 - 1 November 2024.
I exhibited a video work on Newhaven’s last working fishwife, Esther Liston. In an interview not long before she died, she looked back on her work as a fisherwoman: ‘My mother said it was too hard a life and wouldn’t let me learn it…at 36, I started with the creel. It seemed like the natural thing to do. At first, I felt as if my neck was breaking. It’s an art you know. I used to practise with a two stone box of kippers, then I got used to it’ (Brace 1998, 37).
Sometime between 1843-1847, a Scottish fisherwoman Elizabeth Johnston Hall was calotyped by Robert Adamson and David Octavius Hill. Johnson Hall died in 1901. She was buried on the same day as Queen Victoria. Newhaven is no longer operational as a significant trading port.
Video 1:30 minutes.
Special thanks to Newhaven Heritage (Scotland) and Dr Jeff Liston for the sharing of the colour cine
film footage of Esther Liston © Newhaven Heritage (Scotland). Black-and-white footage, Queen
Victoria's Funeral, 1901 © British Pathé.
For more on Feminist Methods, see: https://radar.gsa.ac.uk/9895/
Other exhibiting artists included Sara Barker / Yiyang Chen / Anne-Marie Copestake / Kate Davis / Caroline Douglas Rebecca Fortnum / Marita Fraser / Marianne Greated / Shauna McMullan / Nat Raha Katarina Ranković / Margaret Salmon / Sharon Young
