The Ring in the Fish

The Ring in the Fish is a collaborative body of work that includes a series of moving image vignettes on 16mm film, alongside photographs and audio interviews of memory and place. Drawing inspiration from the tale of St. Mungo—patron saint and founder of Glasgow—and the story of the fish and the ring, the title becomes a conduit for the transformative nature of both individual and collective narratives inviting an intimate exploration of journeys, separation, memory, and identity.

The Ring in the Fish explores what role imagination holds in migration, and how these images carried across multiple generations of migrants create new psychic landscapes, enabling new ways of being—reworking filmmaker Humphrey Jennings’ notion of “making visible the delicate re-balancing of facts, events and ideas”.

Centred on storytelling and oral narratives, the dialogues within this work illuminate how histories exist in the multiple spaces between national identities, race, gender and diaspora. Syed conjures images and stories from the inner worlds of South Asian people who came to Glasgow in the 60s and 70s, for whom the will to imagine served as a bridge to buffer the harsh realities of post-war Britain against a backdrop of political change. Matter is simultaneously revealed and redacted, forcing different forms of viewing, and allowing different temporalities to surface.

Exhibitions
2025 Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow

Downloads
The Ring in the Fish Press Release CCA (1.9MB)
The Ring in the Fish CCA Gallery Guide (11.3 MB)

Reviews
Hyphenonline