Orkney Camera Club respond each year to the Festival theme, and this year had an even bigger challenge – to do so online; and they have responded in splendid style. Their exhibition Orkney’s Coastal Waters is a delight, as you can see by going to it on the Artsteps site.
The exhibition ‘Ian Scott – a retrospective’ can be seen online at the Artsteps site. Online exhibitions use a lot of computer memory, so it is best to make sure first that all other applications are shut down, and it can take a little time to load. To start with, just clicking on an image is the simplest way around, moving from each one to its neighbour, and then furthermore possibilities can be found.
Katy Firth in association with Stromness Museum has put together an exhibition of 360 degree photospheres of a visit to the island. With each of the images, you can turn it round a full 360 degrees, to see the full range of views from your vantage point. You can go direct to the exhibition, and she is also going to provide online guidance as to how to make the best use of it.
From Rockall to Faroe, Iceland to Greenland, the 19th-century Shetland boats – the Faroe smacks – sought the cod shoals. They used baited lines, then salted the catch on board. Dried salted cod from Shetland was sold to the Basque country, and live cod (kept in tanks) to the London market. They also smuggled Faroese brandy and tobacco. John Goodlad, who has worked in the seafood industry all his life, tells the story of “ordinary people who did extraordinary things”.
Off Norway’s coast, right on the Arctic Circle, the cold clean waters around the little island of Træna produce fine seaweed, which the Northern Company harvests and sells. The company’s founder, Zoe Christiansen, describes its sea and laboratory work, in a small fishing community of less than 500 people, amidst spectacular scenery and northern light.
Plan your own Orkney lunch in advance from our downloadable recipe brochure, with links to Orkney suppliers. Then at 1 o’clock tune in to the Science Festival YouTube channel to hear from Tristan Cameron-Harper on his journey north. We’ll have a foraged food recipe from Wendy Barrie, and Eric Walker tells how to find Selene’s Chariot in the night sky. They’ll round off at 1.15 pm and join us for lunch around one of our online tables.
She was one of the most powerfully-armed ships in the world, built for the Swedish king Gustav Adolf’s wars in Europe, but on her maiden voyage in 1628 she capsized and sank. But after more than 300 years underwater she was located, and raised in 1961, and put on display. Her timbers had been wonderfully well preserved through the heavily polluted Stockholm harbour water, and she is the subject of much study – as the Vasa Museum’s research director, Dr Fred Hocker, explains.
It’s an art and a science, say Prof. Graham Machin of the National Physical Laboratory. It started in the 17th century with Galileo’s thermometer and the work of the Florentine Academy of Science. By the 19th century, there were three separate temperature scales. Then with Lord Kelvin came a deeper understanding of temperature and further scales and the concept of absolute zero. What might this century bring?
Svalbard, far to Norway’s Arctic north, is an island group with glaciers, fjords, reindeer, seabirds and also scientific research. Dr Alison McLure, back from her second expedition, shows images of landscape and wildlife in a sometimes bleak yet breathtakingly beautiful setting.
Take the ferry from Stromness to Moaness pier, and walk up the brae to the Hoy Kirk for seaweed soup for supper, with a recipe here for you to prepare at home in advance. Then sit back and enjoy some music, with the story of Jimmy o’ the Bu’s Polka, with memories from his grand-daughter Jean Thomson and his tune played by six of his great-great-grandchildren, including the fiddle that he played on. Then we hear the story of settlement in Rackwick from archaeologist Dan Lee.
Moray’s astronomy club SIGMA host a visit from Prof. Ken Rice of the Royal Observatory Edinburgh and welcome you to join them and hear about the remarkable speed of discovery of extrasolar planets, or exoplanets.
Nordic Viola presents reflections on female experience of landscapes and community from the Northern Isles to Greenland in music by women composers for string quartet. Highlights include ‘Machair’ by young Highland composer Lisa Robertson and music influenced by Orcadian history and the Hardanger fiddle style by Gemma McGregor. Greenland’s only classical composer, Arnannguaq Gerstrøm, reflects on winter whilst English composer Lillie Harris depicts the full fury of a Shetland storm. Anna Appleby’s evocative ‘Hrakningar’ includes migrating geese from Iceland, and American Jocelyn Hagen offers a new take on the haunting Icelandic lullaby ‘Sofðu Unga’. There are new tunes reflecting on motherhood and the wild Orcadian weather by traditional fiddlers Margaret Robertson (Shetland) and Fiona Driver (Orkney),
Round off the day with the atmosphere of The Reel, and the opportunity to take a break and join a table to meet up with old and new friends and exchange news, and some of the speakers from events as well.
Join Eric Walker to find out what to look for tonight, weather permitting. “It’s for absolute beginners,” he says, “It’s for naked eye viewing and commonly available binoculars – no telescopes required.” Eric, who’s chair of the Highlands Astronomical Society, will present the sky view each day as it would be seen from North Ronaldsay. He says that he’d be interested to hear from everyone, wherever they are, about what they’re looking out for in the night sky tonight.
A science festival has a radical role in developing a creative climate for a region. Here is the story of how it began, and how Orkney was involved from an early stage in the concept.
