From The Floorboards

Marking 125 years since Sir Ernest Shackleton first sailed to Antarctica aboard Discovery with Captain Scott, folk musician Georgia Shackleton presents a journey through history, music, and the sea — blending song, moving image, and conversation to honour the past while responding to the threat facing today’s oceans.

From the Floorboards is an evolved project from Georgia’s Shackleton Violin project. At its heart is the Shackleton Violin — an extraordinary instrument crafted from the floorboards of Shackleton’s former Edinburgh home. Its voice, carrying the weight of endurance, discovery, and adventure, was recorded aboard the historic RSS Discovery in Dundee.

For this special festival performance, music is interwoven with video footage from violin-maker Steve Burnett speaking about the instrument, alongside live visuals drawn from the recording sessions, expedition locations, and contemporary sea imagery. Joined by guitarist Aaren Bennett, Georgia presents songs written for our oceans and their struggling marine life, alongside music penned by Shackleton and his fellow explorers.

The event also includes a brief Q&A with Georgia about the project and the process of using songwriting to dig into history and to raise awareness about conservation.

Georgia Shackleton is a folk singer and musician best known for working with traditional material from East Anglia. She works with fiddle, voice, tenor guitar and drones to create crisp arrangements of old songs, and new compositions. Georgia is a critically acclaimed songwriter, with self-penned songs and traditional re-workings achieving national radio play on BBC Radio 2, 3, 4 and BBC 6 Music. Georgia takes great influence from the traditional singers of the East of England such as Harry Cox, Walter Pardon and Phoebe Smith. The traditional material she performs often stems from her native East Anglia and her own compositions are often inspired by stories from the region and the area’s unique, compelling landscape.