About the Sea Change Programme

Stewardship and Community Agency on Scotland’s Islands

Cape Farewell’s Sea Change (Tionndadh na Mara in Gaelic) is a four-year programme of research and making across Scotland’s western and northern isles.

The project began with a gathering of 50 artists and scientists from across the UK at Cove Park in 2010. In 2011 30 UK and international artists and scientists sailed on Marine Conservation research vessel Song of the Whale from Mull and the Small Isles, Skye and the Inner and Outer Hebrides to St Kilda, Lewis, Rona and the Shiants. Artists and scientists worked collaboratively and independently to consider the relationships between people, place and resources in the context of climate change. In 2013, the second Sea Change expedition took place, exploring Orkney and Shetland.

The Sea Change project aims to encourage knowledge exchange, celebrating grassroots and national initiatives which combine local knowledge and resources with advanced technologies and pioneering research into social and ecological resilience. These include community land ownership schemes, sustainability and heritage projects, and renewable energy, adaptation and coastal management programmes, some developed in partnership with island cultural organisations. The project also aims to extend the languages, metaphors and methodologies of participating artists, enabling them to find new and affective forms for the stories and experiences of island communities

Sea Change  is part of Creative Futures, a Creative Scotland talent development programme which aims to promote the professional development, capabilities, connectivity and ambitions of Scotland’s creative practitioners and organisations.

This is a Cape Farewell project, part of the London 2012 Festival and the Year of Creative Scotland. It is supported by Creative Scotland, Arts Council England, Compton Foundation, Cove Park and The Bromley Trust.