Richard Shucksmith in Shetland has spent the last three years working on the BBC’s Wild Isles series, broadcast this spring. He shares images and stories, and guidance as well, and speaks about the physical and technical challenges involved, from his lifelong love of photography.
Come for a tour with Paul Green who designed the community park and Bob Mackenzie who came up with the original idea. You’ll see the signs of natural soil restoration and the results of all the community planting efforts, and make your own contribution by planting two trees which will be provided.
Details to come
What is AI, where is it going – and can we make use of it in rural and island areas? Here's an introduction from Dr Matjaž Vidmar of Edinburgh University, who uses AI for his work bridging space technology, art and innovation. The workshop takes place in one of the KGS computer rooms, or you are welcome to bring along your own laptop. Numbers limited to 15: booking essential.
Pier Arts Centre, Stromness Many of the artists in the Pier’s permanent collection, including Barbara Hepworth and Naum Gabo, were deeply influenced by a remarkable book written by a remarkable man. D’Arcy Thompson was Professor of Natural History at University College Dundee and the University of St Andrews, but had wide-ranging interests including mathematics, art, philosophy and the classics. His 1917 book On Growth and Form probed deep into the mathematical patterns underlying living creatures. Pier curator Andrew Parkinson introduces the artists, and Dr Isobel Falconer, historian of mathematics at St Andrews, describes
Join the director of the Ness of Brodgar excavations, Nick Card, for an off-season walk around the site where this summer’s excavations have just been completed. Hear about the wider landscape around the Ness and the news from this year’s dig, along with some of the particularly interesting finds.
The Sun’s heat and light is vital for life on earth – but it also generates ‘space weather’ that can damage satellites and endanger astronauts. Dr Karen Meyer of Dundee University describes the huge temperatures of the Sun’s atmosphere and the massive eruptions of energy that sometimes burst from it; and how mathematics can shed light on some of its mysteries.
Meet friends old or new and enjoy the best of Orkney cheese, meat, fish and baking. Hear too the announcement of the winners in the wildlife photography competition. The One O’Clock Toast is in memory of the writer Bessie Skea (‘Countrywoman’), born 100 years ago. It is given by her granddaughter, Sarah Jane Gibbon.
It’s a great sight on Broad Street in front of the Cathedral, with an opportunity to see cars that can range in time from a Model T Ford from 1915 to a new electric vehicle of today – and with over a hundred years of vintage vehicles, classic cars and tractors in between, along with the sound of engines in action, and all beautifully restored.
What really causes the northern lights? Plasma physicist and explorer Dr Melanie Windridge describes an Arctic journey of discovery through Scandinavia, Canada and Svalbard, interweaving the underlying science with background history, folklore and landscape – and spectacular images of the Northern Lights.
Science, mathematics and art come together to celebrate three anniversaries. The Scottish mathematician Hugh Blackburn. who invented the double pendulum that produces a pattern-drawing Harmonograph, was born 200 years ago. So was his wife, the talented painter and ornithological illustrator Jemima Blackburn, a favourite cousin of the physicist James Clerk Maxwell. She was related through her mother to the first major Scottish woman portrait painter, Katherine Read, born a century earlier, in 1723. Like her Orcadian friend, the engraver Sir Robert Strange, Katherine Read spent part of her career as a Jacobite in exile in Paris and Rome. Art historian Prof. Frances Fowle is joined by mathematics historian Dr Isobel Falconer to explore these richly colourful lives and times.
Award-winning photographer Richard Shucksmith shows you how to take stunning wildlife photos, with the help of the birds at the Skaill House Falconry Centre. Numbers restricted to 10, booking essential.
The aurora is triggered by the solar wind, but the link only became clear after a massive solar storm in 1859 and an equally powerful magnetic disturbance on Earth observed by Balfour Stewart, of Orcadian descent. Local historian Patricia Long tells the story of the man, and Prof. Tom Stevenson describes his work in physics.
Two fossil hunters and a working gravel pit near Swindon with something sticking out – it was the top of a huge fossilised mammoth leg bone from around 215,000 years ago, in a warmer period between ages of ice. The remnants of five mammoths were found – and a human-made hand axe – leading to the documentary Attenborough and the Mammoth Graveyard, and making this ‘one of Britain’s most significant Ice Age discoveries in recent years,’ according to Historic England. The discoverers, Neville and Sally Hollingworth, tell the story and describe the ancient world in which the mammoths and their hunters lived.
Kirkwall City Pipe Band with their final parade of the season.
Scottish composer Eddie McGuire’s five astronomy-inspired pieces of music have never been played before as a complete series. Tonight, to celebrate his 75th birthday, you can hear them together, with astronomer Dr Anne-Marie Heijmans of St Andrews University joining him in conversation. The music comes in three films specially recorded by musicians from the University, including trumpeter Bede Williams and members of the Wallace Collection. First comes the film Five Stars in Auriga, featuring Big Bang, Orbit, and Auriga where each instrument represents a star in the constellation. The pieces of music are interwoven with stories from the Scottish Borders of lives connected by astronomy and space. Then after a short break come Earthrise (symphonic poem for brass band) and Symphonies of Galaxies. Afterwards you can sit back with Orkney traditional musicians celebrating the occasion.