"The Caliph will carry you safe home to me
Bringing our fortunes in spices and tea
The Caliph will carry you safe home to me
From the arms of the mermaids and the cruel China Sea"
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What was your involvement with the affair of the Caliph?

My father was John T Rennie of Deemount and, when I was sixteen, he let me name the ship – Caliph. The loss of the ship was of huge embarrassment; for him and for me. I was a bad omen, a bad luck charm. The fault, in some way, was mine. Letting a girl name a ship was sentimental and there is no room for sentiment on the sea.

In your mind, what happened to the ship?

The insurers accused us of inventing stories to account for Caliph’s disappearance. The captain’s name was sullied, there were rumours spread of mutiny. Navigators, who could not answer back, accused of incompetence and deliberate sabotage. At home, old captains were consulted. Sea charts were repeatedly and fruitlessly pored over. The corners of maps of that kind used to be illustrated with sea monsters!

Then that is what you believe?

I made it my life’s work to find what remained of the ship, in part or in whole, to discover what had happened. I travelled to each of the ports where she might have put in. I was told that, even if she had made land, she would have been broken up by scavengers – more likely that this would have happened in shallow water, in sight of shore. Over the years, parts of the ship began to emerge. Some were presented as mementos. For others, it was clear that the salesmen did not know it was part of the Caliph, had never heard of the Caliph. I saw parts of the ship cannibalised and woven into the bodies of other vessels.

What did you find at Anjer?

The largest part of the Caliph I had seen since it left Aberdeen. A part of the hull, setup as a curiosity, propped up on a scaffold. Many small bodies clung to it, the nails of their hands trapped between the planks. Some were crushed, others had bloodshot eyes – they had struggled, in panic, to death. Their chests and arms were short, strong, sinewy and tapered into scales and fins. Even in death their eyes glittered.

What did you do with the relic?

Nothing. I looked at it for a very long time. Not once did I touch it. Then I left, and I left Anjer; left it behind. For now, I knew.
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“The Wake of the Caliph” was an immersive Installation and ‘false archive’ drawing inspiration from the Ningyo Merman an object in The Horniman Natural History Collection - The Merman is a composite of papier-mâché body and fish tail. Alexa Reid drew inspiration from the concept of ‘chimera’ as both a methodological approach for developing new dramaturgies, and as a method of fabrication and presentation, exploring the potential for developing false-archives, this is an ongoing exploration in Reid’s practice that looks at developing methods for unlocking new dramaturgies through interaction with existing collections and archives. Reid collaborated with writer David Matthews and Musician Natasha Lohan to develop this project. The piece was made as an audio-experience for headphones and corresponding objects and artefacts as part of an archive housed in an Edwardian display cabinet. The Project was commissioned by Curious Commissions in collaboration with Trinity Laban and the Horniman Museum.

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/37023