Degree Show 2025

‘The Herring Queen’ is a project that began while exploring my heritage. With an interest in Scottish culture and the effects of community on small towns throughout the Scottish Borders. I focused heavily on traditions that lifted spirits in times of hardship. The annual ‘Herring Queen Festival’ includes a week-long parade of drinks, bagpipes, picnics and the coronation of the ‘Herring Queen’, typically a girl aged 14-15, who rules the town for a week. This festival is similar to many others in the border regions and first commenced in 1939, serving as a way to celebrate the war efforts and escape the threat of industrial decline and poverty. I used the notions of this festival to fuel my final project, combining the light-hearted nature of the event with more serious undertones, such as the generational trauma brought forth through the struggles of those in Eyemouth.

To best create an experience that combined my ideas, I decided to create an experience through film. Titled ‘The Herring Queen’, the film tells of the origins of the Queen of Eyemouth and how she achieved her crown. By meeting eclectic characters along the way, she confronts her self-doubts and anxiety after washing ashore on the sands of a stormy beach. As a result, she finds the ‘Sacred Crown of Hymooth’ and transforms into the long-awaited Queen.

Furthermore, I combined my film with paintings I had made throughout the year, as a way to enhance my degree show space and connect visual motifs to the moving image.