Salt & Silver brought together artists, historians, and activists to examine the intersections of gender, class, and labour that shaped the lives of the Herring Girls — and to highlight the ongoing relevance of working-class women’s experiences in shaping the world we live in today.

Salt & Silver is part of the public programme for Red Herring by Joanne Coates, building on the themes explored in Coates’ exhibition. Through talks, performances, screenings, events, and a solstice celebration, we reflected on how the Herring Girls’ stories have been excluded from mainstream narratives, and explored how these histories can be reclaimed and reimagined.

Expanding on Joanne Coates’ research for the exhibition Red Herring, we curated a programme of events that brought into dialogue past and present narratives to spotlight the ongoing relevance of working-class women’s experiences in shaping the world we live in today.

Alongside Joanne Coates herself, we brought together artists, researchers and practitioners Beverley Carruthers, Duncan Forbes, Jill de Fresnes, Jennifer Jasmine White, Yvette Taylor, Fadzai Mwakutuya, Hussein Mitha, Jacquie Aitken, Mirren Kessling, JJ Fadaka, April Sutherland, Aileen Ogilvie.

The title alludes both to the practice of preserving herrings with salt, and to the symbolic power of the herring itself, known as the “silver darling” for its shimmering appearance and economic role.Inspired by Highland midsummer traditions of bonfires, sunrise walking, and women’s gatherings at sacred wells, Salt & Silver included acts of collective renewal and solidarity. These gestures honour the historic ways in which women nurtured, protected, and renewed their communities at the turning point of the year.

Curated by: Joanne Coates and Giulia Gregnanin
Curatorial assistance: Sofia Cotrona
Image courtesy of Gavin MacQueen

Programme

Fri 20th June

Silver Daughters
With Beverley Carruthers and Duncan Forbes

Silver Daughters was an evening of moving images and sound art presenting Guttin’ Quines (2025) and Gu’un the Fish n’that (2024) followed by a Q&A with the film director Duncan Forbes and artist Beverley Carruthers.

Across contemporary works exploring the stories of the Herring Girls, Duncan and Beverley spotlighted a variety of themes. Their works engaged with the rich mixture of regional languages and identities represented by the Gutting Girls, the role of working songs as a way to endure harsh working conditions, and the solidarity and isolation faced by the women over long months of travel and work.

Guttin’ Quines (2025)
Directed by Duncan Forbes
Duration: 12:10 min
This short film follows Jeannie, a young woman adjusting to life in a remote Scottish fishing town. Through her work gutting herring alongside her mother-in-law, Maggie, Jeannie discovers resilience and connection within the tight-knit community. The film authentically portrays the lives of fisherwomen, with dialogue in Doric and local extras from Pittenweem.

Gu’un the Fish n’that (2024)
by Beverley Carruthers
This layered sound piece traces the voices and memories of East Anglian herring girls, many of whom migrated from Scotland. Using oral histories and knitting patterns as musical scores, Carruthers connects past and present highlighting the vital yet overlooked role of migrant women in the fishin industry.

Sat 21st June

A Kind of Freedom: Stories from the Herring Girls
Talk by Dr Jill de Fresnes

The multi-media talk A Kind of Freedom: Stories from the Herring Girls brought incredible historical and personal insights into the histories of the Gutting Girls. Dr. de Fresnes presented a rich collection of oral histories and interviews with women who worked in the Scottish fishing industry. She brought to life how the women lived, travelled, worked, and formed their own cultures with a careful blend of research, oral histories, and photographs that explored the unique freedom, joys and challenges faced by them.

Thurso Pride

We were proud to take part in the first Thurso Pride and the furthest north pride in the UK. We were excited to represent Timespan’s continuous pride and commitment to include and uplift LGBTQI+ narratives throughout our programming, events, and exhibitions.

We believe we are not done changing the world, but we will always keep trying to do our part through our work and beyond, to become an organisation welcoming for everyone.

Red Herring Exhibition Tour
With Joanne Coates and Giulia Gregnanin

Joanne Coates and Giulia Gregnanin led visitors in an artist and curatorial talk about the exhibition Red Herring. In the tour the audience had a chance to discover the complex research and production practices that led to the creation of Timespan’s summer exhibition.

Red Herring explores the legacy of the Herring Girls bringing into dialogue archival and contemporary stories through a new body of work. Joanne and Giulia generously shared aspects of the process from the six-months residency led at Timespan by the artist, to the archival research unveiling some of the many stories that are interwoven in the exhibition. Joanne explained how she disrupted traditional representations of working-class women, presenting their labour as an active and complex struggle in her new body of work Labour Pains (2025), Submerge (2024), Trajicere (2024), and Involvo (2024).

A Transversal Reading of Class
With Jasmine White, Yvette Taylor, Fadzai Mwakutuya, and Hussein Mitha
Chaired by Joanne Coates and Giulia Gregnanin

During A Transversal Reading of Class Jennifer Jasmine White, Hussein Mitha, Yvette Taylor, and Fadzai Mwakutuya discussed how class is embodied, narrated and resisted across different social terrains, expertly chaired by Joanne Coates and Giulia Gregnanin.

Their discussion investigated the intersection of class, gender, race, and sexuality in contemporary Britain, followed by an enriching conversation with the audience about issues of meritocracy and the need to connect local and international struggles for solidarity.

“Fight with hope, fight without hope, but keep fighting” reminded us Hussein Mitha. Their work and that of the other panellists and chairs brought to Timespan ways to keep resisting unjust systems and create solidarity in overcoming them in the arts and beyond.

Solstice Ceremony
With Mirren Kessling

Priestess Mirren Kessling led a Solstice Ceremony combining rituals of renewal and the traditional crowning of a Herring Queen, which she reimagined through a collective lens. She guided participants in a procession across Helmsdale towards the shore, passing through some of the historical sites where the Herring Girls lived and worked.

On the shore, Mirren led a meditation connecting participants to the sea, inviting everyone to make a wish for the future, and crowning all the attendees with the new Herring Crown. Mirren created a magical ceremony accompanied by otherworldly chimes that left our audience relaxed, connected, and full of light and energy for the second half of the year.

The Herring Crown

As part of Salt & Silver, the children’s Herring Crown was unveiled. This is a new commission collaboratively made by Joanne Coates, the Helmsdale Primary School and jewellery maker Patricia Niemann, reimagining the traditional tiara used to annually crown the Herring Queen.

Priestess Mirren Kessling included the crown as part of her solstice ceremony and reimagined the traditional crowning as a collective ritual where all participants wore the crown and chanted “crowned by the herring, blessed by the tides.” During the festival, Joanne Coates also created portraits of multiple members of the local community wearing the crown which will become part of a living archive of Helmsdale’s residents and visitors.

The children were enthusiast at discovering how their drawings have been used to inform the creation of a real object. You can see some of their original sketches exhibited as part of Red Herring. The Herring Crown will be processioned again by Helmsdale’s children and Joanne Coates as part of the Highlands Games on 16th August.

Solstice Barbecue, Poetry and Music

The solstice celebrations continued with a delicious barbecue organised by the Friends of Timespan, live poetry and live music. The evening was a wonderful occasion to bring together our local community to share food, meet old and new friends, and enjoy plenty of activities, including a raffle, temporary tattoos by Aileen Gray and a bonfire.

Over the solstice celebration, Cáit O’Neill McCullagh led a poetry performance with local poets who took part in her workshop Poetry of People and the Sea, presenting their new compositions exploring maritime mythologies.

The performance by artists April Sutherland and Aileen Ogilvie brought to Timespan a blend of traditional work songs, and contemporary pieces honouring the legacies of the Herring Girls and the Scottish fishing histories.

Sun 22nd June

Words from the Shore
With Jacquie Aitken and JJ Fadaka

Salt & Silver, closed on Sunday with Words from the Shore a heritage walk led by Timespan’s curator Jacquie Aitken and a spoken word performance by JJ Fadaka. The two practitioners wove together past and present narratives exploring questions of labour, resistance, solidarity and hope, through the legacy of the Herring Girls.

Bios

Joanne Coates is a working-class visual artist based in North East England, using photography to explore rural life, class, and inequality. Her work, grounded in lived experience, often combines installation and audio, with strong community participation. A practicing farm labourer, her art intersects with environmental and social themes. She was the 2024 UK House of Commons Election Artist and has received major awards including the Baltic Vasseur Arts Award and Jerwood/Photoworks Award. Her work is held in collections such as MIMA, Arts Council, and the Government Art Collection.

Duncan Forbes is a passionate and devoted director interested in representing characters and narratives not commonly explored in films. Duncan believes in fostering a spirited and collaborative dynamic on set and throughout production to encourage collaboration and bring out the best of all crew members involved. Duncan was inspired to create Guttin’ Quines because of his family, as he comes from generations of Fisherfolk. Duncan’s previous work includes directing documentary shorts, such as ‘Selkies’ and narrative fiction films, most recently ‘Mr. Balloonhead Man’.

Beverley Carruthers is a multimedia artist exploring female experience through ritual, performance, and storytelling with photography, sound, and film. Her current projects include Gu’un the Fish n’that, a touring sound installation rooted in Shetland’s herring culture, and In Plain Sight Unseen, a decade-long collaboration on Two Tree Island, Essex. A former Senior Lecturer at UAL, she co-runs Writing Photographs and contributes to The Expanded Librarian with institutions including RCA and the University of Cambridge. She also leads Reframing Menopause, a project that has generated collaborative film and text works and co-curated the first multidisciplinary menopause conference at the University of Cambridge in 2019.

Dr. Jill de Fresnes is a filmmaker, researcher, and educationalist with 35+ years of experience in heritage and community engagement, particularly in Scotland’s coastal and fishing communities. She has collaborated with UHI, the National Trust for Scotland, and international partners through the Northern Periphery Programme. Her work blends oral history and multimedia storytelling to turn lived experiences into lasting cultural legacies.

Jennifer Jasmine White is a writer and doctoral researcher at the University of Manchester, exploring working-class femininity in Britain through creative and critical practice. Her work spans class, gender, and popular culture, with writing in Financial Times, New Statesman, and Tribune. She has spoken at Tate Britain, BFI Southbank, and the Whitworth, and in 2025 guest curated From the Earth Comes Light at the National Coal Mining Museum.

Yvette Taylor is a Sociologist, who writes about class, gender, sexuality and higher education, recently publishing Working-Class Queers. Time, Place and Politics (Pluto, 2023) and running Queer and the Cost of Living Crisis seminar series, also published as an illustrated booklet. Yvette has worked with the Scottish Government researching LGBTQ+ lives in the pandemic, and with Scottish Ballet on Safe to be Me, exploring inclusive curriculum in schools.

Fadzai Mwakutuya is a decolonial artivist and curator exploring migration, ecological justice, and embodied heritage through diasporic and sustainable perspectives. Her work challenges dominant narratives, provokes critical dialogue on equity, degrowth, and well-being, and fosters compassionate, inclusive futures. Based in remote Scoraig, she connects international artists, heritage bodies, and diverse communities through creative, symbolic interventions.

Hussein Mitha is a writer and educator whose practice bridges poetry, radical pedagogy, and political organising, with a focus on class struggle and anti-colonial thought.

Mirren Kessling  is an artist, Priestess of the Stars and Sacred Celebrant of Avalon. She creates participatory events, public ceremonies, and contemporary rituals that merge land art and social practice. Rooted in the cycles of nature, her work transforms landscapes into living stages for communal encounter, transformation and re-enchantment. She has collaborated with organisations including London College of Fashion, Grubber, Roam and The Line as well as co-founding Just Druid Collective who run meditation walks in and around London. 

April Sutherland is a musician (Piper & Whistle player) from Helmsdale currently studying an honours degree in Applied Music with the University of the Highlands & Islands. Highlights from the past year have included opening the main stage at Belladrum with solo Highland Pipes, playing for the Duke & Duchess of Edinburgh and composing and playing a tune for The King’s visit to Helmsdale.  This summer she is part of the Fèis Air an Oir Cèilidh Trail

Aileen Ogilvie is a singer, songwriter and creative practitioner based in Golspie inspired by stories of people and place, folklore and landscapes. She has performed at venues and festivals across the UK and Europe including several appearances at Glastonbury Festival and Belladrum, other highlights include Stanza Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Festival and singing inside archaeological sites such as Mae’s Howe Neolithic Tomb in Orkney.

Jj Fadaka is a writer, facilitator, and radical based in Edinburgh. Their writing explores the possibility of abolition, feminism, and love to create change. Their work speaks to the political urgencies we face while centring community-making in our resistance.

Jacquie Aitken has extensive experience in climate and social justice, developing equitable cultural practices and community and youth initiatives. These include the People’s Mobile Archive, a community wellbeing initiative, and RE:COLLECTION, which aims to research, decolonise, and reframe our collection and museum. Areas of research include women and global sea fishing, the Transatlantic herring trade, and medical provisions for herring gutters.