Cùram Cuain - Embrace the Sea
Cùram Cuain - which means ‘Embrace the Sea’ in Scots Gaelic - looks towards creating a vision to steward the marine-protected sea around islands. The project was a collaboration between myself and artist Jonathan Ford. There are two strands – ‘My Protected Fathom’ and a performance event that took place in October 2021 on Bayble beach on the island of Lewis. ‘Fathoming’ is an old word meaning to figure out, or get to the bottom of something. It comes from the old maritime unit of depth measurement called a fathom. Originally, this was a measure of outstretched arms from fingertip to fingertip. The event consisted of a choreographed performance ‘embracing the sea’ on a windy wild sea day, in collaboration with the Hebridean Sea Swimmers group.
Following this, the Bayble community gathered at the local hall to measure their individual fathoms with special ‘fathoming tools’ and connect with their vision of the sea. From this event a specially created fold-out ‘embrace the sea’ map was designed, printed as a limited edition, and posted to each island participant - mapping the individual islander’s fathom onto their own MPA sea, raising awareness of our individual and collective connections to the protected sea within our lives.
A film was created to contemplate the macro view of the sea, setting up the conditions for a transformative vision for the future.
You can read about the events here:
And more about the project here:
https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/c10f5c28962e40888c99f43f232efdfa
https://www.mpa-management.eu/
The commissioned film was officially launched on 19th May 2022 on social media platforms and will be physically launched at the Mareel cinema in Shetland in March 2023.
Title: ‘The sea around us - the encircling sea’ - Are we calling time on the sea? film 6 mins 38 sec
Link to the film:
With kind permission from The Margaret Tait Estate.
The film starts off contemplating and preparing the viewer to enter into a space to have a vision for the sea, which is calling out for its future survival.
Are we calling time on the sea? This is the first serious contemplative question to think about.
The film viewpoint begins from high above the birds and the sea looking downwards, transitioning to human height level with time-lapse, then moving underwater together with the fish and to the seabed. It transitions vertically down between these angles of vision surveying and contemplating the multiple positions and power of the sea. The film split screens between views referencing surveillance cameras switching between scenes and views. The film moves on to the ‘embrace the sea/cùram cuain’ event asking another macro scale question - Can we fathom the sea? This is followed by different definitions of the word fathom, relating to the action of measuring fathoms that took place within the project, and the act of figuring out and trying to understand our relationship to the sea with all its interconnected complexities.
Cùram Cuain took place on Bayble beach on the isle of Lewis on a stormy day of 50 mph winds. The film at this point mixes viewing angles between close ups of the group in the sea and looking on from the beach - a mix of perspectives both from the human and from the environment looking over the swimmers. The film tries to promote the idea of multiple interconnected perspectives enabling clear thinking and an ability to see the issues of stewarding the future sea, generating a working vision that leads to a path forward.
The video footage was taken primarily from time spent on Lewis in October 2021. The background sound was recorded with outdoor microphones and hydrophones. The narration is read by Saoirse and created with a combination of text written by Jonathan Ford and poem excerpts from Orkney filmmaker and poet Margaret Tait. Margaret's style of film poetry making, and her perspective on islands and seas, particularly influences Saoirse's work.
