Vismijn

Kristina Leko, 2004
35' / 35' + 20' + 20' DV
Single channel video / Single channel video installation expanded with a wall text /
Three-channel video installation expanded with objects (edition 3 + 2)
No dialogue in channel one / Dutch, English in channels two and three



This experimental documentary records actions that take place every Thursday in the municipal fishing company of the city of Vlissingen, the Netherlands. In 35 minutes, the video follows and documents in detail the processing of the fish harvest, using images as the only tool to explain the workflow in its spatial and dynamic structure. By emphasizing the mechanical nature of the process, the documentary also raises questions about our relationship with living nature. The context of the work (see below) raises religion and Christianity as theme. The video screen is divided into four images and shows fishing boats leaving their harbor and later returning to the same place. The next scene shows the process of unloading the fish from the boats, which dock one after another. After that, we are in a huge industrial hall where we observe a group of 70 workers during a whole night. They manually sort the fish and store them in crates according to size; once filled with fish, the crates are transferred to the next hall. The next morning, we see the same fish being sold at the fish bourse in the same complex. Finally, we see trucks loading the fish to be transported away.

The work opens with the following on-screen text:

The Vlissingen fishing flotilla of 15 boats leaves the harbor precisely at midnight on Sunday night. It returns late Thursday afternoon loaded with more than 20 tons of fish. Every Thursday afternoon, about 70 workers gather in the Vlissingen fishing hall to work through the night, sorting the fish into boxes according to size. No machine can sort 20 tons of fish overnight to be sold the next Friday morning. The machines would need a week to do the job, and to do that, every day of the week, two boats in the flotilla would have to return from fishing. For some fishermen this would mean working on Sundays. The fishermen of Vlissingen are religious and don't want to work on Sunday. That is why the fish is and will be sorted by hand every Thursday night. Vlissingen is the last place in the Netherlands where fish is still sorted by hand.

Interviews with several workers—some of them migrant workers—complement the main video narrative and can be shown on monitors in an extended version of the installation. The workers were asked three questions: their opinion on the current international political situation, what they would erase from world history, and what is most important for a good life. The recorded narratives show a rather apolitical attitude of the workers, or their discomfort in addressing political and historical issues, and in some cases their biases in relation to Dutch colonialism, which was mostly omitted.

Note on display: The work can be shown as a single channel experimental documentary in a movie theater. It can also be shown as an installation - a one-channel video installation or a three-channel video installation. If it is shown as an installation, it will be expanded by the text quoted above to be mounted on the wall in approximately the same size as the main video projection. In the case of a three-channel video installation, the main video projection (35') on the wall showing the entire work process is expanded by two video channels (20' each) on monitors showing interviews with workers.

In the original site-specific setup in Vlissingen, the three-channel video installation was expanded with an object installation of over 200 fish crates, which gave the installation its distinctive smell.

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