Ghost Ship
Ghost Ship, 1999
Dorothy Cross (b.1956)
Hullâs identity is strongly connected to its historic importance as a port. The more recent decline of its fishing industry and the effects on the local community find an echo in this video work by the Irish artist Dorothy Cross.
The following text about âGhost Shipâ which commemorates an Irish vessel could equally well be applied to Hullâs Spurn Lightship, both sharing parallel uses, histories and fates and highlighting the linked identities between two distinct communities and geographical locations.
âThe lightship is a material reminder of a period of Irish history during which daily life was dominated by the sea- a source of sustenance, pleasure and danger. Cross laments the loss of this intimate relation to nature, as modern life shifts the attention of the Irish people away from the seacoast and âinward to the citiesâ: âThe Irish coast is being neutralized, automatized, Europeanisedâ. In this piece she reincarnates, along with the ship, the collective memories of a particular way of life being slowly eroded and forgotten... She evokes the lightshipâs history not to fix the past but to repeat its passing, to make visible the process of lossâ.
35mm film and DV8 footage transferred to DVD
Purchased through the Contemporary Art Society Special Collection Scheme with Lottery funding from the Arts Council England, 2005
