The sea runs through just about every aspect of life in Orkney, whether the winter gales leaving dried salt on the windows, or sparkling summer light on the water. For the Year of Coasts and Waters we have a varied mix of many aspects of the sea – of gale-lashed fishing vessels, of singing seals, of tidal turbines of today, of women who hear the music of the sea and women who build ships to sail on it.

We take a fresh look at the old selkie legend of transformation – it speaks of a process of changing shape to adapt to the world of humans or of nature at will. The need to do that has come to the fore with today’s challenge of environmental damage and waste material. Can we apply a transformation to route our waste from the landfill, to instead turn it into a resource, or shapeshift it creatively into a thing of beauty?

We also link up with islands worldwide – to the Nicobar and Andaman Islands and St Helena and Tierra del Fuego – in a special presentation of community developments in energy. And we reach out along the old sea-roads of the north to music from women composers, and reflections on landscape and community, from Orkney to Greenland.