music * film * dance * boatbuilding * art * oral histories * celebration
Diving for Pearls is a participatory, multi-media project which Govan & Craigton Integration Network has delivered over the past year, with funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund.
Inspired by Clive Langer and Elvis Costello’s song Shipbuilding it explored the cultural, social and economic impact of the shipbuilding industry on the population of Govan by focusing on and bringing together people with migrant histories: from the descendants of Highland and Irish settlers to the more recent arrivals from Europe, as well as asylum seekers and refugees from around the world. The project explored oral history; the stories, shared experiences and common ground behind the shipbuilding industry
Inspired by Clive Langer and Elvis Costello’s song Shipbuilding it explored the cultural, social and economic impact of the shipbuilding industry on the population of Govan by focusing on and bringing together people with migrant histories: from the descendants of Highland and Irish settlers to the more recent arrivals from Europe, as well as asylum seekers and refugees from around the world. The project explored oral history; the stories, shared experiences and common ground behind the shipbuilding industry
Video directed, filmed and edited by Tonatiuh Soto
“Shipbuilding” was written by Elvis Costello and producer Clive Langer during the Falklands War of 1982. The lyrics discuss the contradiction of war bringing back prosperity to traditional shipbuilding areas, whilst also sending off the sons of these areas to fight and, potentially, lose their lives. Govan is one of those traditional shipbuilding areas. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the shipyards provided work for thousands, including many migrants from the Highlands and Ireland. Nowadays, new migrant communities are emerging and, while they may not be working in the yards, there are still connections with shipbuilding. Polish families from the (former) shipbuilding city of Gdansk, for example, or asylum seekers and refugees fleeing war; arguably “the result of shipbuilding”, as the song has it. Moreover, in the case of Govan and Clydeside generally, the fallout after the closure of most shipyards caused mass unemployment and poverty, something deeply felt to this day. The song can seem pretty bleak, but then again there is hope in the final line.
We don’t always need to be diving for dear life. We could be diving for pearls.
We don’t always need to be diving for dear life. We could be diving for pearls.
"Phew, what to say. Your multi-faceted project looks to me like about the best thing to be doing right now - grassroots politics being, it seems,the only politics that can rescue serious issues from our obtusely weird professional political elites.
Good fun as well as seriously helpful to the vulnerable"
-Robert Wyatt, August 2012
