Name/TitleUp Helly Aa installation
About this object.... created by Holly Graham for her 'No winder you canna catch fish' exhibition.
‘No winder you canna catch fish’ is a new body of work by artist Holly Graham, developed in response to Gaada’s project ‘Weemin’s Wark’. The work takes as its starting point an oral history account held by the School of Scottish Studies Archives. In the audio excerpt, recorded in 1961, Katie Laurenson speaks of the history of annual Shetland festival Up Helly Aa, noting how the sun-worship custom of processing ‘sungaits’, via the path of the sun, was later replaced by a route mapped in the opposite direction – ‘widdergaits’. Through a verbatim poem that touches on these digressions from tradition, and an accompanying collection of materials that speak of contemporary conversations surrounding calls for festival inclusivity reforms, Holly considers tangled ideas of resistance and push-back, natural courses or cycles, constructions of myth, and the passage of time.
MakerGraham, Holly
Maker RoleArtist
Portfolio TitleNo winder you canna catch fish
Date Made2020
Period2020s
Subject and Association KeywordsCraftivism
Subject and Association Keywordswomen's work & labour
Subject and Association DescriptionWeemin's Wark was a dynamic programme of community workshops, cultural research, artist exhibitions, and publishing activities which took place between January 2020 – July 2021. It was developed by Gaada with support from Up Helly Aa for Aa, Glasgow Women’s Library and Creative Scotland. The project worked to increase the visibility of women’s contribution to contemporary island culture. Weemin’s Wark provided a safe space in which to examine notions of labour for Women and allies who challenge structures of social and institutional inequality.
Holly Graham is a London-based artist, working predominantly with print and audio. Much of her work looks at ways in which memory and narrative shape collective histories. Holly undertook her BFA at Oxford University in 2012 and graduated from MA Printmaking at the Royal College of Art in 2014. Recent exhibitions and projects include: While the Piled Cumuli Sail Galleon-Like Above – I, Barratt David Wilson Homes for Cane Hill Park, London (2020); #FridayFact, Goldsmiths CCA, Online (2020); To Us It Just Looks Like A Lemon: Bothy Residency, Southwark Park Galleries (2019); On Board II, Art Licks & Espacio Vista, Madrid (2019); BOUNDS, Skelf, Online (2019); The Oval Window, Gerald Moore Gallery, London (2019); The Romance of Flowers, Kingsgate Projects, London (2018); Common Third, Copperfield, London (2018); Carefully Cleansed of Labour and Softened by Cooking, Compressor, London (2018); and Sweet Swollen, Jerwood Visual Arts: Project Space, London (2018). Holly is Head of Artist Development at Turf Projects, Croydon, and is Co-Founder of Cypher BILLBOARD, London.
https://www.gaada.org/weemins-wark
Named CollectionGlasgow Women's Library
Object TypeArtwork
Object numberGWL-2021-57
Copyright LicenceAll rights reserved