果冻传媒

Citation

Fleming D (2024) Hiber-nation: A Weird Screen Tryst [Exhibition] Public Relations & Communications RS, 果冻传媒, UK.. 08.10.2023-09.10.2023

Abstract
The Port of Leith (hinting Arabic and Gaelic etymology) reterritorialised with Scotland’s capital, Edinburgh, in 1920–despite a plebiscite overwhelmingly rejecting the merger. Today, popular ‘Republic of Leith’ clothing ironically betrays Leithers’ enduring resistance to the portmanteau city status. This essay renders visible a curious tryst emerging between Leith’s professional football team, Hibernian FC, and various national and transnational films and media productions. This relationship is, in and of itself, a little surprising. Firstly, ‘Hibs’ are neither Scotland’s most successful, well supported, or internationally renowned clubs. Secondly, the team’s name derives from the Roman word for Ireland – Hibernia: meaning ‘land of winter’ (a term that traces its etymology further to historical encounters between seafaring Greek and Celtic cultures). Hibernian were founded by Leith’s Irish community in 1875 to enable the (reviled) Catholic male diaspora to interact with Scotland’s largely Protestant population. Today, the club remains tied to a port place/space that always-already enfolds outward looking associations, rather than inward-looking notions of national identity. An idea reified in Hibernian’s Emerald-green strip and constellated badge, which montages together the ship of Leith, the crenellated castle of Edinburgh, and the harp of Ireland. Using assemblage theory and film-philosophy methods this essay zooms in on portraits of Hibs and Hibees (players and supporters) populating a diverse range of films including To Catch a Thief (1955), Restless Natives (1986), Trainspotting (1996), The Acid House (1998), Open Doors (2012), Sunshine on Leith (2013), Under the Skin (2016), Trainspotting 2 (2017), and Venom (2018); television programmes such as Rebus (2000-2007), Succession (2018-), and Guilt (2019-); and commercials starring E.T. the extra-terrestrial. Across all, Hibs’ bohemian ‘philosophy’ and schizoid identity articulates semiotically with a range of romantic(ized) insider-outsiders and attractors (rule bending cops and criminals, drinkers, hooligans, junkies, moguls and aliens) who collectively expose Scotland’s inner alterity and transregional agencement-nature.