‘Quota’, Art Walk Porty

Ceramic and photography installation at Art Walk Porty 2023

Bottom towed fishing vessels are highly destructive to underwater ecologies including living seabed ecosystems which take millennia to form. Physically disruptive of the seafloor and indiscriminately collecting everything in their path, they result in the unintentional catch and loss of non-target marine species and their habitats. Less than 5% of Scotland’s inshore seabed is protected from bottom-trawling and scallop dredging.

Quota brings this unseen activity to the surface, asking what life looks like to those who live underwater.

The work compares the weighty, sharp and unwieldy gear of the scallop dredge with its chain mail “belly bag” to the delicate marine bodies underwater. Riley has engaged with local marine scientists and conservationists to create underwater photographs of affected locations. These images show not only the impacts of dredging but also the positive solutions being enacted by communities.