When more than 100 whales beached on Scotland’s beaches within three weeks in 2018, Mella Shaw wanted to know why.
“No one really understood at the time,” explains Edinburgh artist and activist Mella, 47.
“But over the next couple of years there was a lot of research done, and it turned out more than half of the beached whales were this one species, the goose-beaked whale (or Cuvier’s whale).”
The goose-beaked whale, Mella explains, is the deepest-diving mammal on Earth.
The beached animals showed evidence of decompression sickness or “the bends”, suggesting they’d returned to the surface too quickly for their bodies to handle.
“This was because something unusual was happening very deep down,” Mella explains.
“It turned out it was a specific naval exercise which had taken place over a period of a few days.”
How ‘noisy’ ocean led to whale deaths
The sonar noise from the naval exercise, it is thought, disrupted the whales’ ability to echolocate. Essentially, the whales got lost, causing the mass strandings.
Similar effects can be seen from the use of sonar equipment to search for oil and gas reserves.
“When I first heard that, I was surprised,” admits Mella, who visited beaches on South Uist to see the stranded whales for herself.
“We often think of sea pollution in terms of plastic and sewage.
“But most people don’t think of sound pollution in the ocean because when you’re above the surface, you can’t hear it.
“For the whales, they’re evolved to feel that sound through their whole bodies. For them, it’s like living under a railway station.”
This discovery is what inspired ceramicist Mella to create sculptures using bone china – that is, whale bone china.
“When we talk about bone china, it’s cow bones that are usually used,” she explains.
“Instead, I got permission from NatureScot to harvest the bones of one of the stranded whales, to create a whale bone clay.”
Whale bones ‘cut like butter’
After years of acquiring the necessary permissions, Mella received a delivery of humongous whale bones at her studio.
She then had the task in front of her of sawing them, grinding them up, and creating the clay mix.
Luckily, despite their gargantuan size, the bottlenose whale bones she received were “very light”.
“The bones needed to be sintered to 1,000C and they wouldn’t fit in the kiln whole,” explains Mella. “I only had this little hacksaw and I thought it would be quite hard work to chop them up.
“But the whale bones are almost like honeycomb, they have this network inside that’s normally full of oil.
“So they handled like balsa wood almost. It was like cutting through butter.”
From there, Mella fired the bones and ground them to bone ash, which she added to her clay mix, making it “short, almost like pastry”.
Her final sculptures, large white shapes, are based on the sensitive, tiny inner ear bones of the huge mammals.
Feel the noise of the oceans at McManus
In her exhibition Sounding Line, on now at Dundee’s McManus Galleries, the sculptures are tied to the ceiling with maritime sounding line ropes.
Real life sonar frequencies pulse through the ropes, and visitors can “feel” the noise of the ocean, where such sounds can travel for miles.
“I want to take action, but statistics and images about these strandings can be brutal,” says Mella.
“This is a way I hope people can connect to this information without being overwhelmed.”
And she’s excited to bring the critically acclaimed exhibition to the Dundee museum, giving the city’s deep-running relationship with the whaling industry – it was the last Scottish whaling port to close – and its ongoing connection with the marine giants.
As a child, Mella spent a lot of time in the National Galleries of Scotland, where her father worked, staring up at the whale skeleton on display.
She knows many of Dundee’s children will have experienced the same connection with the Tay whale – a humpback harpooned in the River Tay in 1883 – on display at McManus.
“The McManus is obviously a museum that has a brilliant whaling collection which references the importance and the significance of whaling historically within Dundee,” she explains.
“It’s reflected across the city in street names (such as East Whale Lane and Baffin Street) and the history of the Tay whale as well, which is obviously an animal that a lot of people have quite fond association with.”
Drawing a line in the sand
Before creating the finished exhibition, Mella dragged one of the huge sculptures, unfired, back into the sea at South Uist, using a maritime sounding line rope.
There the sculpture dissolved, but not before creating a long, pronounced line in the sand.
For single parent Mella, who is involved with Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, this is an apt metaphor.
“Enough is enough,” she says. “When I started this project, my son was two. Watching him grow, and seeing the climate catastrophe getting so obviously worse and worse was a real call to action for me.
“Having the responsibility of bringing a new life into the world, you have to take that seriously.
“We have to draw a line in the sand.”
Mella Shaw: Sounding Line at The McManus: Dundee’s Art Gallery & Museum is free and runs May 24 2025 to January 18 2026.
Conversation