BONE-A-COD – Marie-Chantal Hamrock

BONE-A-COD is an exhibition exploring speculative intersections of place, class, and gender in relation to the fishing industry in the North-East of Scotland.

“It was an Aberdeen Fishwife who, when speaking about the Motto of her native city, remarked, ‘Bone-a-cod! It taks me a’ my time to bone a Haddie!’”
-Canny Tales Fae Aberdeen

BONE-A-COD is an exhibition exploring speculative intersections of place, class, and gender in relation to the fishing industry in the North-East of Scotland. Here, Aberdeen’s ubiquitous town motto ‘Bon-Accord’ is reimagined, allowing overwritten and unfulfilled fishing histories to come to the fore. Through imaginal world-building and speculative fictioning, the artworks examine the lingering presence of fishing in Aberdeen, while considering the very real and lived realities of the fishing industry in Peterhead and Fraserburgh. The exhibition consists of printmaking, sculptural props and film.

Marie-Chantal Hamrock is a visual artist and writer based in Aberdeen. Blurring the line between the real and the imagined, Marie’s work explores speculative narratives of place, folk tradition, maritime histories, feminism and social class. These semi-fictional narratives are activated through props, performances and film-making. She is currently a practice-based PhD candidate at Gray’s School of Art. Her PhD project, Speculative Intersections: Class, Place and Gender in the North-East of Scotland’s Maritime Cultures is supervised by Dr. Jon Blackwood and Dr. Laura Leuzzi.