Erin Coates & Anna Nazzari, Cetaphobia (2013-14)
Artist: Erin Coates & Anna Nazzari
Work: Cetaphobia (2013-14)
Location: Albany, Western Australia
The Scrimshaw Project began with the idea of learning the ancient and waning art form of incising imagery into whale teeth. The journey to learn the skills and stories of those still connected to this practice involved working with scrimshanders, divers, marine biologists, the families of whalers and the residents of the coastal town of Albany, home of the last commercial whaling station in Australia.
Set in the coastal town of Albany, Cetaphobia is a ghost story that traces the haunting and ultimate misfortune of a married couple troubled by a whale spirit. The obscure and ambiguous spirit is an unsettling remnant of the port city’s once viable whaling industry. Its presence is awakened after the wife, who is a scrimshander, starts inscribing the only remaining evidence of its life: a tooth. This action unleashes a dark and cetaceous force that possesses the scrimshander and her husband and draws them back to the site of the Cheynes II, the sunken wreck of the whale chaser, where they are eventually overcome by a disconcerting and unknowable horror.
