The Mhaighdean Mhara Collective
The Mhaighdean Mhara Collective is a seafaring troupe of musicians, makers, artists, sailors, shipwrights, storytellers and archivists. A theatrical mishmash of minds bound for the rolling seas, on board a 1930’s sailing lugger in search of folk songs and stories from rural, coastal communities, we would initially focus on the Hebrides, Ireland, Wales and Cornwall.
The Mhaighdean Mhara (pronounced ma’t-deen vara) is an historic wooden workboat, a Fifie herring drifter. She is one of last of her kind, one of the few to survive before industrialised trawlers claimed the fish shoals and sea bed. We found her just on the brink of no return and have vowed to pour all we have into restoring and repurposing her and more so; to give her a new story.
To paraphrase Gustav Mahler, we wish to tend the flame, not just worship the ashes of oral culture. We will scour the shores in search of songs, tales and ways of life. From those who have lived the industrial and cultural changes of the previous generations to the dwindling population of young people within rural communities, we will listen, collect and preserve their work and their knowledge.
We plan to create an expansive online archive that will be free to all, as well as creating and curating performances, visual art, theatre, and vinyl records made in collaboration with Glasgow-based Holy Smokes Records. We will also trade small scale sail cargo, encouraging and empowering independent producers in isolated locations. The Mhaighdean Mhara will be a collaborative space bringing makers of different mediums together to create bodies of work at sea - and taking these cargoes of ideas and innovation far and wide.
