Teän Roberts (Hold Fast) - Wracked, 2022

WRACKED, 2022

Digital giclée photographic print on 310gsm cotton rag archival paper

“Sometimes - and always on Midsummer Eve, which was Baal-fire night - while they laboured [burning the kelp], the women and girls would join hands and dance round the pit.” – Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, Major Vigoureux, 1907.

It’s hard to say whether this account is a romanticised interpretation of bucolic island life by an overly sentimental outside observer, or evidence of a real folk practice associated with kelping. Scillonians are pragmatic people, so it is possible there was never any kelping folklore. However, it is hard to imagine that a practice that lasted 150 years - and was so intrinsically connected to the yields of the sea, storms, spring tides, etc. - could be entirely free of associated traditions. No evidence exists either way, but Roberts hopes to lean further into reimagining the lost folklore of kelping, as this project continues.

16x20 inches. Edition of five. £120