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The need to rethink the human relationship with the natural world is the context of Selena S. Kuzman’s new performance film. It draws on the old Highland stories of deer shapeshifting into women, bridging the human and natural worlds. Costume and headdress are created from found and pre-loved fabrics and objects from the past.

Oceanographer Dr Neil Banas looks at how a story by a master Haida mythteller, Skaay, reflects the marine ecology on the North Pacific Ocean’s edge. “He managed to capture the dynamics of ecosystems at the ‘edge of chaos’ in his mythic frame with an accuracy that mathematical modellers still struggle to duplicate.”

A visual short performance film about the sea and its transformations, and our relationship to it. Is the sea an object to be gazed at from a distance, or a place of attachment for us? The moisture in our bodies links us to the rain from the sky and the water of the seas. Our bodies follow the tidal movement of ebb and flow, hope and despair, joy and sorrow – are we carried in a deeper flow?

Filmmaker Mark Jenkins brings together images of Rackwick with voices past and present, using a slow cinema approach to focus on the aural experience. The film was created in response to ‘The Hidden Valley of Light’, one of the ‘Tales o Hoy’ podcast episodes developed for the Hoy Heritage ...

The stars and their origins are the theme of three works by the Scottish composer Edward McGuire – interwoven here with stories from the Scottish Borders of lives connected by astronomy and space. Each of the five stars is represented by a separate instrument, with the first trumpet for the brightest, fiery Capella. Howie Firth’s text for the linking narrative and its Borders theme was inspired by many conversations with a lifelong friend of the Festival from Jedburgh, the late Dr Tim Dolan.

Award-winning wildlife cameraman and photographer Raymond Besant takes us on a tour of Orkney's coast, from cliffs and geos to sandy beaches, and the varied birds and mammals who live and feed there in a world of wild weather, orcas, otters, seabirds and seaweed.

It starts with a handful of stone artefacts from the Ness of Brodgar, in the heart of Neolithic Orkney … and Prof. Mark Edmonds of York University and UHI goes in search of their origins. Some are striking, others seem simple by comparison; all of them have stories to tell about how stone was caught up in people's lives over 5000 years ago.

The old selkie story found in Orkney and elsewhere around the coast of the British Isles tells of shapeshifting between the human and natural worlds, in the uncertain boundary world of the shore. This performance piece by artist Selena S Kuzman, specially created for the Year of Coasts and Waters, merges in a poetic way the folk stories of the selkie people with the transformation of waste materials and our deep connection with the sea and the land.

Walk through Binscarth Woods and over the hill to the Loch of Wasdale, on a section of the St Magnus Way. Orkney wildlife guide Megan Taylor looks out for wild plants while ethnobotanical researcher Anna Canning discusses their traditional uses for sustenance and health with foraging experts from Scotland and Poland. After the film there’s an opportunity for live questions to them both on aspects of wildlife and foraging.

Music inspired by the sea, presented by its composer, Lochaber musician Ingrid Henderson, in conversation with the head of NatureScot’s marine unit, Katy Gillham. The music was created for a new music and audiovisual show for the Year of Coasts and Waters. Mixing newly crafted music and song with ancient Gaelic melodies and powerful imagery and animation, it explores themes of ocean currents, migration and environmental impact as well as celebrating the rich marine life around us and the deep cultural connection of coastal communities to the sea. Music by Ingrid Henderson (harp/fiddle/vocals), Anna Massie (guitar/fiddle), Megan Henderson (fiddle/vocals/piano) and Conal McDonagh (Irish pipes/whistle).

Orkney storyteller Tom Muir tells a selkie story from North Ronaldsay. Katarina Juvančič sings The Great Selkie of Sule Skerry, accompanied by guitarist Dejan Lapanja, and then a song in similar mood about a Slovenian girl taken away by a water-sprite. Anne Sinclair from Fair Isle describes some of the island’s shipwrecks and introduces a song from the group Fridarey.

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),