As part of the Hull Maritime Museum transformation, three sets of artists have been commissioned to create work within the theme of being at sea.
With creative freedom, there have been different responses from each artist providing a different and personal perspectives alongside the more traditional stories which will be covered within our galleries.
Here Neville Gabie tells us more about his film which will feature within the museum once open to the public.
Tell us more about yourself
Born Johannesburg South Africa, MA, Royal College of Art, London, 1988. I currently live for half the year in South Africa and in the UK.
Since my time as a student at the Royal College, London I have predominantly worked outside the confines of the studio. My studio is in the landscape, both urban and rural and almost always with the people who live and work in those places.
I want my work to be real, to be relevant and to connect with people and their lives and the best way to do that is to immerse myself in those situations. Sometimes it is uncomfortable, often it is challenging, always it is ultimately rewarding. Central to this approach are reciprocity, trust, mutual respect and collective endeavour. Over the years I have collaborated with other artists, writers, musicians and scientific researchers, academics, cooks, builders, rowers of boats, makers of all kinds, or simply people who happen to be living where I am working.
The project that convinced me of the value of working collaboratively and outside the studio was one that I initiated whilst artist in residence at Tate Liverpool. Working with artists Kelly Large and Leo Fitzmaurice we developed a project Up in the Air to invite artists and writers [including ourselves] to live and work alongside the residents of a tower block in North Liverpool due for demolition.
Over five years 1999 – 2004 twenty-five artists lived and worked in the building for periods of up to three months, leaving their work behind in the empty flats. Working closely with the residents, the whole tower block was opened every few months so that visitors could explore artworks on all 21 floors of the building. The relationships we established, the trust we built and the creative boundaries we pushed convinced me of the huge potential and benefits of putting creativity central in people’s lives.
I believe in making work which I can ‘give away’ which has its value in ideas rather than simply as an artifact. So, to create a work for Hull Maritime Museum which is there for such a wide and diverse audience to experience is a privilege.
Tell us more about the work you are creating for Hull Maritime?
The work I have made for the Maritime Museum traces the journey [in a very edited form, their experiences were just so graphic] of three unaccompanied child migrants who made gruelling journeys fleeing violence and war.
Their individual routes, two from Afghanistan and one from South Sudan involved hardships few of us will ever experience.
All three were only fourteen when they set off alone and without any family. With the theme of the work ‘At Sea’ it is as much about the physical ocean that separates the UK from mainland Europe as it is about the emotional state of being utterly lost.
The film also includes footage filmed in Orkney of ongoing field research into Fulmars* – a small albatross which nests and breeds in these waters. Fulmars are a very particular sea bird. They live for up to fifty years or more, they partner for life breeding only after their ninth or tenth year and they will only lay one egg each year.
Although tiny, they make huge journeys out to sea, often travelling five thousand miles in two weeks before returning to their chick on the nest. Their vulnerability, their ability to navigate huge oceans and still find their way back, seemed in many ways to provide a metaphor for the risks and fragility of life and of the migrants in this film.
What was your inspiration?
But the reason I wanted to focus on this particular theme in relation to Hull involves a much more personal story.
My own grandparents had made a similar journey escaping persecution and in search of a safe haven a little over one hundred years ago.
My grandfather travelled as a sixteen-year-old boy on his own leaving family behind in Latvia [never to be seen again] finally making his way to South Africa via the UK. On my grandmothers side the story connects directly to Hull.
Her father Movsha, [my great grandfather] travelled alone from Libau, Latvia [now in Belorussia] to Hull on a ship called Leopold II arriving at Albert Dock on the 3 March 1909 before making his way to South Africa. His wife and children, including my grandmother Rebecca followed three years later following the same route. Without their journeys and the huge roll Hull and Grimsby played in receiving East European Migrants, my life would not have been what it is.
All three migrants, Eshan, Ismael and Aladdin have recently been given the right to remain in the UK as genuine refugees and for the first time in their brief lives have found a semblance of normality, all be it without family. Given contemporary politics in the UK, Europe and the Western World the issue of migrants and refugees has become toxic. I hope the film will provoke a little more understanding and compassion for those in genuine need.
Did you do any research?
Thanks to Dr Nicholas Evans at the Wilberforce Institute [University of Hull] finding my direct connection to Hull was tremendous.
It involved a significant amount of research into Hull’s role in offering a gateway and sanctuary historically to East Europeans. Many of those physical traces are still visible in the fabric of the city. Hull continues to pride itself as being a City of Sanctuary.
Do you have a favourite/powerful part of the film? If so, what is it?
Listening to Eshan Ismael and Aladdin’s stories was harrowing and I spent many hours with all of them.
But there was a moment when filming the Fulmars when I held one close to my chest feeling its heartbeat before releasing it into the air which was the most poignant moment of this project for me. It was only then that I genuinely understood the sanctity of life and how very tenuous is our hold.
Here is some of Neville's past work.
The weight of iron carried from China for you – commissioned by BeHave, curators Stephanie Delcroix and Michael Pinsky on behalf of Fonds Belval, Luxembourg 2015 / 2016.
Neville Gabie was commissioned with nine other international artists to make a new work in response to the former iron and steel production site in Belval, Southern Luxembourg. The former smelting plant was demolished and rebuilt in China as a functioning steelworks. Neville travelled to China to film and record the plant and used this material to create a sound installation and fil exhibited in the ruined foundations left as a monument in Luxembourg.
https://www.nevillegabie.com/works/the-weight-of-iron-carried-from-china-for-you/
Collective Breath – WOMAD Music Festival 2015
Commissioned to make a new work for the festival, Neville Gabie collected 5 litre bags of breath from 1111 one thousand, one hundred and eleven festival goers over three days. The ‘breath’ was then transferred into a single high pressure tank and the tank connected to a musical instrument Neville had made. Based on suggestions from all the contributors the tank and instrument were taken to Mace Head, Connemara, Ireland – the most westerly point of Europe where the air was released to play a ‘collective’ sound over the ocean. Recordings, a photograph and film were then made available through WOMAD website and sent personally to each contributor.
https://www.nevillegabie.com/works/womad-2014-collective-breath/
Factory Works – for Manchester International 2020 – 2024
Commisioned by Manchester International [now Factory International] to make a work in response to the building of its iconic new venue Aviva Studios, Neville worked very closely with a number of the key building fabricators. Working in collaboration with musician/DJ Nabihah Iqbal making field recordings and interviews, these became the basis of several music tracks on a vinyl album. Since Factory International was a nod towards Manchester’s musical legacy / Factory Records -it seemed appropriate to make a vinyl. 1500 albums were produced – each with a completely unique cover [a concept by Peter Saville – the legendary designer for Factory Records]
Neville also worked with Soup Collective in producing an accompanying film – screened at the launch in the former Granada Studios. The vinyl albums were given to all the site constructors as their own personal and unique artwork
Grassroots and Tarmac – 1995 – ongoing
Since 1995 Neville has been photographing informal goalposts around the world. Fascinated by the simple inventiveness of their construction, the location in which they are found and the huge range of landscapes, he now has an archive of over 1000 images from 50 countries. First published by Penguin Books in 1999 ‘Posts’ the work has since been exhibited worldwide including Japan, Korea, Europe, FIFA Headquarters, 3 World Cup Finals, Tate Liverpool and Tate Modern. This year Neville launched a digital artwork where 300+ images from the collection can be seen.
Instagram -- @grassroots_and_tarmac
The Edge of Things – Blickling Hall, Norfolk – commissioned by the National Trust 2018/2020.
In response to their vast library Neville and Joan Gabie developed a whole series of projects including one based on the Elliot Bible. One of the first books every to be printed in the USA 1664 – the bible is written in Wampanoag and was intended to convert the Native American people who the Pilgrim Fathers encountered. Over the years the community was almost entirely destroyed by war famine and disease and the language banned punishable by death. However in recent years there has been a language revival – and the few remaining Elliot bibles [there are less than 50 copies in the world] has been key to rediscovering the language. We visited, worked with and documented ‘speakers’ the final film projected into the Tapestry room adjacent to Blickling Library.
