2023-02-18 12:14
After 6 years and 3 months (fast, slow, slow, slow, fast) on January 6, 2023 I submitted my film and written thesis. The final title is ‘Attending, listening, taking time: the quietly… Read More
Blog Directory > Books & Literature Blogs > shona main | words, images, half memories… books-and-literature Blog >
2022-02-02 18:16
An honouring of Jessie Saxby (Wildie) (1842-1940) through her writings and love of her late daughter, Lalla. Commissioned by Shetland Arts and Creative Scotland. Words and music Catriona Mac… Read More
2020-03-10 09:33
Whilst COVID-19 has created uncertainty, I am packing and readying to head back to Grise Fiord to see the people who helped me when I was there in 2018. I will show them the film I have made… Read More
2018-10-06 17:45
It turns out this was the first ever public screening of the film in Grise Fiord. Lovely screening of Gilbertson's 'Jenny's Arctic Diary' in Grise Fiord Hamlet last night. pic.twitter.com/en… Read More
2018-09-28 19:39
The joy of filming ice forming while @carlacap sends me updates from the Terry Gilliam talk @cinetecabologna pic.twitter.com/I1zLwXVbJI — shona main (@shonamain) September 28, 2018 Read More
2018-09-28 15:21
Vital research materials from the men of the Shetland Archive @ShetlandMandA pic.twitter.com/AT2ilxO7xu — shona main (@shonamain) September 28, 2018 Read More
2018-09-25 17:20
New home, new view. pic.twitter.com/bp9SrPQURp — shona main (@shonamain) September 25, 2018 Read More
2018-09-24 16:42
Observing my corvid friend with the sound recorder on the roof to catch any wing flap. pic.twitter.com/5Yk2SOaL4C — shona main (@shonamain) September 24, 2018 Read More
2018-09-15 17:15
Last night while out trying to record ice forming. pic.twitter.com/toZgJKU53b — shona main (@shonamain) September 15, 2018 Read More
2018-09-13 17:55
Here in Grise Fiord I'm a world away from @VADundee, but these angles reflected on the water made me feel its moment. pic.twitter.com/LPLfLsq8Cg — shona main (@shonamain) September 13… Read More
2018-09-11 14:20
And this morning, a thin layer of sea ice. pic.twitter.com/LQk3TfbNbf — shona main (@shonamain) September 11, 2018 Read More
2018-09-08 18:10
Going who find out who this super cool Inuk kid is and ask for hurl. pic.twitter.com/UnAq0AgxF7 — shona main (@shonamain) September 8, 2018 Read More
2018-09-04 18:08
Waving off a dear friend of two huge months. My, you get so attached to folk at 76°N. pic.twitter.com/SDLvDbbeE8 — shona main (@shonamain) September 4, 2018 Read More
2018-09-01 03:06
First it was the fuel tanker. Then the Arctic Fisheries Alliance with frozen and dried good. Then the sea lift with the power plant, the college and the other heavy duty vehicles and buildin… Read More
2018-08-28 17:05
I am missing lots of things in Grise Fiord but it’s the way my loved ones talk and the way they use words that I miss most. Actually, they don’t even need to be loved. Some of th… Read More
2018-08-27 01:23
For @BrownriggJenny, old blue ice with ringed seal skin and flippers. pic.twitter.com/C3x86BtlBe — shona main (@shonamain) August 27, 2018 Read More
2018-08-20 02:28
This ice is actually a bit of a thousands years old glacier from the east of Grise Fiord. They reach it by boat and use a power saw to hack off huge chunks which they then take home and keep… Read More
2018-08-15 03:20
Saw my first narwhal today, being systematically cut up and shared out for eating. No pics as no permissions, not least from the deceased. — shona main (@shonamain) August 14, 2018 Read More
2018-08-11 15:57
Endeavouring to learn Inuktitut, I seem to have so many blocks. Both the syllabics and the words, with no shared root, are so unfamiliar. But then you have an exchange and a new visual memor… Read More
2018-08-07 23:07
And I’m not the only one. My Cree housemate has just made Neechi (friends) bannock. Oh, my. pic.twitter.com/NfQoDIZehr — shona main (@shonamain) August 7, 2018 Read More
2018-08-05 04:28
Grise Fiord: 4th August 2018, 23:52. Trying to record sea ice melting with my H4N and hydrophone. Might need to try again another night. pic.twitter.com/IIBi3DwtC1 — shona main (@shona… Read More
2018-08-02 13:57
Grise Fiord, Nunavut last night. Are these adolescent mammatus, struggling to express themselves, @CloudAppSoc? pic.twitter.com/F0xvNfm8wC — shona main (@shonamain) August 2, 2018 Read More
2018-07-31 02:49
First non-organic thing I've found on Grise Fiord's shore. Some once pink polystyrene. pic.twitter.com/Cp45uzVfAr — shona main (@shonamain) July 30, 2018 Read More
2018-07-30 21:29
pulaaq ᐳᓛᖅ to visit. Brought some raw ginger as a wee minding (the vegetable dealer delivered today). — shona main (@shonamain) July 30, 2018 Read More
2018-07-30 20:18
Grise Fiord, Friday 27th July. On Sunday, following a day huge gusts of wind, we woke to an open sea. On Monday, t… Read More
2018-07-28 15:46
2018-07-25 23:42
2018-07-18 22:02
Arctic Poppy (papaver radicatum). It’s designated vulnerable so I am watching where I put my feet. Grows as far north as Kaffeklubben Island at 83° (you can be vulnerable yet still… Read More
2018-07-17 21:35
2018-07-15 16:04
2018-07-09 16:38
I arrived in Grise Fiord on Friday. I am here. I can sleep for an hour or two then wake up in the 24-hour light (we’re not talking the gentle half light of the simmer dim, but full bea… Read More
2018-07-01 18:29
Dithered for an age about which books to take to the Arctic. Took them all Read More
2018-04-13 09:24
I am planning to set off for in late June for my six months of fieldwork in the Arctic. Following in Jenny Gilbertson’s footsteps, I will head to Grise Fiord, the settlement she filmed… Read More
2018-04-12 15:19
I itemised these when I was at the Shetland Archive. They are cans of cuts and trims from Elizabeth Blaneaves films. They contain bits of 16 and 35mm films that no one has seen for years. We… Read More
2018-04-04 15:42
Jenny did not throw anything out. Ever. So her archive is full of letters, letters to her, carbon copies of letters from her, notes made from phonecalls in response to letters. As she moved… Read More
2018-03-09 11:50
I am back in the Shetland Archive for the last month of my SGSAH Artist’s Residency, cataloguing the Jenny Gilbertson Collection. While I await delivery of the new box of papers which… Read More
2018-02-13 17:52
As I prepare for my Arctic Fieldwork in Grise Fiord, quite a few people have asked if there is anything they can do to support me. I am thinking about how best to do this. In the meantime I… Read More
2017-11-30 16:04
Currently, I am Artist in Residence in the Shetland Archive in Lerwick by day, cataloguing the Jenny Gilbertson collection of papers, sound files and images. By night, I am planning, prepari… Read More
2017-08-24 10:34
James Taylor interviewed me for his Creative Life series of podcasts. We spoke about the making of Clavel and the relationship I had with James Robert, the crofter I filmed over a year. We a… Read More
2017-08-19 10:57
I had a dream where it was raining and I was at my desk writing about the sound of it hitting the window. When the rain stopped I felt I should turn what I had written into past tense as &he&hell…Read More
2017-07-14 12:56
I am learning Inuktitut but I am finding it very difficult. I have studied a language before (Italian) but with that, there was so many roots I could connect with, so much that I could see… Read More
2017-06-13 18:07
2017-06-07 19:08
How can he be so beautiful yet so murderous? Read More
2017-06-05 12:18
Such is the power of these things, you can feel the earth move Read More
2017-05-30 13:27
From a box of Arctic artefacts stored in her daughter’s loft. Bone snow goggles with caribou leather straps. To protect eyes from snow blindness. An ulu (plural: ulut), a woman’s… Read More
2017-04-04 21:04
I’ve been playing the computer game Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna), a fascinating collaborative project between the games developer Upper One Games and elders of the Cook Inlet T… Read More
2017-02-15 10:16
All of this time I have been researching Jenny Gilbertson in the Arctic I have been asking my fellow schoolmates at Dunrossness Primary School, ‘do you remember when we did the Arctic?… Read More
2017-01-26 09:39
A list of things Mass-Observation were interested in, as itemised in the New Statesman in 1936 and quoted in “Fires were started…”, Brian Winston’s examination… Read More
2017-01-23 11:07
Sailed into Lerwick while the dark was still hanging. Have come to Shetland to tak’ peace and read and think and write, all while the wind blows around me. Read More
2016-12-05 16:53
Stirling University and the SGSAH supported me to attend Arctic Futures 2016. This annual conference bring together the European Institutions with interested organisations and… Read More
2016-11-13 17:30
A slide of the area of Shetland Jenny Gilbertson filmed in, in the 1930s. This was from the presentation that Joanne Jamieson from Shetland Moving Image Archive and myself gave to the Relate… Read More
2016-05-16 13:55
Thank you to the Scottish Graduate School for Arts & Humanities for supporting my research in Jenny Gilbertson. I have been awarded full funding to undertake a 3-year, full-time practice… Read More
2016-02-02 11:33
I arrived at Sumburgh Head Lighthouse in Shetland with the warnings of Storm Gertrude. She was wild. As fierce as I have ever experienced. With winds of 100mph and gusts of 11… Read More
2015-05-26 10:56
As May’s artist in residence at Sumburgh Lighthouse in Shetland, the film I made, Clavel, will be screened twice tomorrow, Wednesday 27th, in the education suite (which is probably the… Read More
2015-04-09 13:20
When the rain hammers down on your tent the fear of leak, lake or landslip denies you the delight of just 1mm between a dry you and the wet it. But soft rain with its lig… Read More
2015-04-09 12:31
Sugary water on a plate; chasing the sun; words of encouragement; willing life to stay within it. None of these were enough Read More
2014-06-25 18:06
Today I spent the afternoon with Tim Neat’s bees. Wearing a beekeeper’s suit, I was able to get very close to them and them to me. They seem to like technology, relating to… Read More
2014-05-20 18:30
Soft evidence of a vicious attack. There was no body. No wing. Just down Read More
2014-03-09 17:55
As a child I’d stare into Auntie Doshie’s discotheque of coals and struggle to comprehend why I hadn’t been born to her Read More
2013-12-02 10:46
On a visit to Stirling’s splendid Smith Museum I spent a long time listening to the thick tick of the George Harvey long case clock. Made c1820 by George Harvey (1771-1835)… Read More
2013-10-17 12:02
Oh, bitter black elderberry, thou hath stained me. Read More
2013-09-05 22:03
A furbelow of seaweed. Read More
2013-08-20 12:41
The film I made about James Robert Sinclair of Clavel in Shetland is going to be shown at the Screenplay Film Festival at Mareel in Lerwick on Sunday 1st September Read More
2013-06-22 17:08
On the island of Mousa, just to the south west of Shetland, the lichen-encusted walls click and whurr. Of course I knew it was nesting birds making this noise. I’d read about storm pet… Read More
2013-06-05 17:16
This Black-backed gull had once been great. With its splendid white outstretched wings lifting it high and a call that ripped holes in the breeze, it forayed through the skies. Now, fallen… Read More
2013-05-01 16:55
2013-03-15 15:10
By ten, I had amassed great wealth. I had a box under the bed with three hankie-wrapped packages inside. One contained owl pellets, another bird skulls and beaks and the other, sea-smoothed… Read More
2013-03-06 15:49
2012-07-21 06:57
What chance have you got of ever growing peaches when even in your dreams the greenhouse is only half built Read More
2012-05-31 09:46
It was his ears I held on to when I rode on his shoulders. ‘Pull the left one if you want to go left and the right one if you want to go right.’ One of my school friends asked &h&hell…Read More
2012-01-24 15:11
There can be nothing blacker than a January night in Shetland. The deeper you go the blacker it gets. The near black of the road ahead. The just-behind black of the hill. The forever bl… Read More
2011-12-11 12:20
I became aware of it, coming towards me. We almost touched but I pulled back. It came again. I felt its chill breath, then the hiss of a fizzing retreat. It tried another time. I stepped awa… Read More
2011-11-29 12:53
There was a time when conversations travelled along telephone lines. Each sentence was tightly rolled up for its journey of tens, maybe hundreds, maybe thousands of miles. And when birds sat… Read More
2011-08-22 09:13
One morning I heard the skin behind my ears crackle. I rubbed it and greenish grey flakes came away in my hand. I knew what it was. I remember seeing these tiny fronds around my grandmother… Read More
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