Sea Change (Tionndadh na Mara)
Sea Change is a four-year Cape Farewell programme of research and making across Scotland’s western and northern isles
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Deirdre Nelson, Inge Thomson. Sleeping Starfish @ The Glad Cafe as part of Luminate, with Fraser Fifield, Kerri Whiteside
Glad Cafe, Glasgow. 15 October, 7.30 pm. £5
Surrounded by a relentless sea, Fair Isle is an island of strong traditions and fierce beauty. Celebrating this, and running in support of the island’s bid for marine protected status, two artists are knitting together waves of sound and yarn, stories and starfish. Sleeping Starfish is both a work of environmental advocacy and a portrait... Read More ›
Working the Map: Islanders and a Changing Environment
A portrait of the Northern Isles with art work by John Cumming
Beautiful artists’ book by John Cumming: Working the Map – islanders and a changing environment Available from just £9.99 http://www.capefarewell.com/art/media/working-the-map-book.html Shetland/Orkney artist and Sea Change commissioned artist John Cumming has created and edited an artists’ book documenting social and ecological change across the Northern Isles. Produced in partnership with Orkney Nature Festival, the book includes... Read More ›
Andy Crabb’s film portrait of Inge Thomson’s Da Fishing Hands
May 2014
In 2014, Sea Change artists Andy Crabb, Deirdre Nelson and Jennifer Wilcox, with filmmaker Peter Cutts, returned to Fair Isle with Inge Thomson and her band to record the premiere of Inge’s song cycle, Da Fishing Hands. The first performance took place in Fair Isle’s community hall in May 2014, and Da Fishing Hands has... Read More ›
James Brady. though everything was gone, we would stay
‘The essence of Orkney’s magic is silence, loneliness and the deep marvellous rhythms of sea and land, darkness and light’ George Mackay Brown See the film here: though everything was gone, we would stay Artist and curator James Brady joined the 2013 Northern Isles expedition, sailing from Orkney to Shetland via Fair Isle on Shetland community-owned... Read More ›
Deirdre Nelson’s The Kildas project returns to the Glad Cafe Glasgow, with Jason Singh, Inge Thomson, Hanna Tuulikki, Mischa Macpherson and Borderline Theatre
Thursday 26 January 2015, 7pm
DStitch presents: The Kildas + Seachange Thursday 26 February @ The Glad Cafe, Glasgow In partnership with Cape Farewell, the Kildas project will present an evening at Glad Café, 26th February 2015 7pm. Cost £5 The evening will partner the remote islands of St Kilda and Fair Isle in an evening of islands, songs and loops... Read More ›
Inge Thomson’s Da Fishing Hands in Celtic Connections
23 January 2015
‘Some of the finest music and poetry ever to have emerged from these fair isles’. Fair Isle musician/singer/composer (Fair Isle is full of multi-taskers) Inge Thomson brings her haunting and mesmerising Da Fishing Hands to the Tron Theatre, Gladgow, during Celtic Connections in January 2015. Written with Fair Isle poet and singer Lise Sinclair, Da... Read More ›
Julie Fowlis Band win Scots Trad Music Award
13 December 2014
Congratulations to Julie Fowlis and her band, who have won best group of the year at the Scots Trad Music Awards 2014. Julie was recently the first Gaelic singer to be honoured with a ‘Tartan Clef’ Scottish Music Award. Julie sailed on the 2011 Sea Change Western Isles expedition. See the full list of awards... Read More ›
Away with the Birds returns to Canna: Review
Hanna Tuulikki
Click here to read the Away With The Birds Review from The Scotsman › Costumes by Deirdre Nelson Read More ›
Fair Isle Marine Environment & Tourism Initiative
For information on Fair Isle’s culture, ecology and Marine Protection Area proposal, see http://www.fimeti.org.uk/ and on Facebook Read More ›
Mathematics, making and birding
Deirdre Nelson
Fair Isle bird made by Tommy H Hyndman At Da Fishin’ Hands premiere at the community hall I noticed a beautiful Fair Isle jumper in shades of mossy green and later discovered that the wearer was Inges grandfather Stewart, a retired Light House Keeper, fiddle player, spinner and spinning wheel maker. His wife Annie... Read More ›
Fair Isle treasures
deirdre nelson
On Saturday morning we made our way to the rock pool at at Muckle Uri Geo. Ready and waiting were a group of young islanders armed with small fishing nets alongside Nick Riddiford, a passionate Fair Isle ecologist. As they dispersed on their mission, Nick told us about the area and the many species... Read More ›
‘An eye to the Windward’: Sea Change on Fair Isle
Ruth Little
Anne Sinclair points at a narrow yellow pine door leaning against a wall in the Fair Isle Museum: ‘When I was growing up, nearly all the internal doors in people’s houses were from shipwrecks.’ Fair Isle may be largely treeless, but there’s wood to be had. Over some 5000 years of settlement here, the sea... Read More ›
Data and culture rich
Deirdre Nelson
Due to a rather atmospheric blanket of fog I arrived into Fair Isle two days and 1 hour late. From my first glimpses of the island from the ferry, it was well worth the wait, and Inge Thompson, on a break during rehearsals and preparations for her performance Da Fishing Hands, was there to greet... Read More ›
Lost Birds and Fishing Hands: Getting our Bearings on Fair Isle
Ruth Little
It’s a Caspian Stonechat, and it’s lost. Its feathers are spiked with rain, and it seems to have a hacking cough. It’s been on Fair Isle for a month, and the word around the island is that it’s unlikely to see the Caspian Sea again. ‘Blown off course, all of them’, says one of... Read More ›
Skye Loneragan and Q-Poetics: Culture 2014
XX Commonwealth Games
Poet/performer Skye Loneragan took part with Cape Farewell in Glasgow’s Merchant City Festival at the Ramshorn Theatre, hosted by GalGael in 2013. Skye is Q-Poet at the Commonwealth Games Glasgow 2014. Q-Poetics is a Culture 2014 project placing poets and poetry in places and spaces of of waiting. See Skye’s video-poems at http://qpoetics.com/ Skye Loneragan is... Read More ›
Grounded (Freumhaichte/Wadlu-Gnana). Judith Parrott
An Lanntair, Stornoway: 13 September - 11 October
Grounded is an exhibition of photographic prints, audiovisual, sound and prose, resulting from residencies with Gaelic speaking communities of the Outer Hebrides of Scotland and with Wangkangurru, Arrarnta and Arrernte people of the Central Australian Desert. The exhibition was launched at XX Commonwealth Games, Glasgow 2014. Follow Judith’s Grounded blog at http://judithparrott.wordpress.com/ Arriving in Steòrnabhagh (Stornoway) The... Read More ›
Andy Crabb’s short film Sea Changes
Part 1 documents the Orkney Expedition
Sea Changes, part 1 featuring Karine Polwart from Andy Crabb on Vimeo. Filmmaker and SAMS artist-in-residence Andy Crabb joined Cape Farewell’s Northern Isles expedition in August/September and reflects here on the first days of sailing in Orkney waters. Sea Changes is the first part of a film about Cape Farewell’s Northern Isles expedition, on board... Read More ›
Sexy Peat/ Tìr mo Rùin – Kacper Kowalski shortlisted for Sony World Photography Awards
Artist Diary 1 November - Kacper Kowalksi. Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines
Congratulations to aerial photographer Kacper Kowalski, who took to the skies of Lewis to photograph the peatlands for his Sexy Peat/Tìr mo Rùin commission. Kacper has been nominated for the Sony World Photography Awards 2014: : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-25983313 Those magnificent men in their flying machines Some people call him an aerial photographer. We call him a crazy... Read More ›
Sea Change at the Botanics
Exhibition at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh 8 November 2013 - 26 January 2014
Sea Change at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh brings together the work of 28 artists/makers who have sailed with us on the 2011 and 2013 expeditions and undertaken residencies on Mull, Canna, Barra, North Uist, St Kilda, Lewis, Orkney and Shetland. The exhibition includes Sexy Peat/Tìr mo Rùin (Highland Print Studio/Cape Farewell). Sea Change... Read More ›
Sexy Peat/Tìr mo Rùin
Artist Diary 18 October - Jon Macleod. Territory – Dùthaich
I have started writing this moor blog whilst on a residency in St.Kilda. It seems that both these places have become defined by the notion of remoteness and as such are comparable. Also the language, culture and archaeology of both are largely shared. To fully experience both St. Kilda and the Moor it is necessary... Read More ›
This Woman Has Spent Almost a Year of Her Life Under Water
Scientist and explorer Sylvia Earle warns that the oceans are ‘not too big to fail’. But she also says that just maybe, we’re growing wise enough to save them. By Chris Mooney, Fri. October 4 2013 http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/10/sylvia-earle-inquiring-minds-oceans Read More ›
Karine Polwart sings Freedom Come All Ye in Orkney’s Italian Chapel
http://vimeo.com/73406037 Read More ›
Sexy Peat/Tìr mo Rùin
Artist Diary 25 July - Murray Robertson. Off the Pentland Road
The Pentland Road traverses Lewis running east to west, from Stornoway to Carloway, and neatly bisects the core of the peatlands allowing access to one of the most unique natural environments in Northern Europe. From the road the moorland looks rugged, wild and impenetrable. The leviathan blanket bog that covers most of Northern Lewis breathes... Read More ›
Sexy Peat/Tìr mo Rùin
Artist Diary 4 August - Alex Boyd. The Emerging Island
As the ferry made its slow and stately progress across the expanse of The Minch, and the great peaks of Skye’s mountains gradually settled towards the horizon, I couldn’t help but stand transfixed at the view which stretched before me. The Outer Hebrides is somewhere which until this week I had never experienced, save through... Read More ›
Sexy Peat/Tìr mo Rùin
Artist Diary 3 August - Anne Campbell. Moorland diary
March. NB 2976 3817. A pool where two streams emerge from beneath the peat – the source of the water which flows to Loch na Mòineach, which in turn feeds Feadan Loch na Mòineach, which joins Feadan Loch an Fhraoich and Feadan Loch nam Breac to form Gleann Thorradail, one of the tributaries of Gleann... Read More ›
Profiled project: In the fields artist collective
floating stones is a sea-based art installation, temporarily placed in White Bay (Port Ban) at Tarbert, Argyll. floating stones is made from selected plastic litter, found on beaches throughout Kintyre, Knapdale and Kilmartin. The plastic is arranged like the cup-and-ring marks which are a cultural legacy of the Kilmartin Glen area. Attached to the plastic ring are... Read More ›
Sexy Peat/Tìr mo Rùin
Pàipear-taighe - Deirdre Nelson
See more of Deirdre’s work at http://cargocollective.com/dstitch twitter.com/dstitch 6 October: Pàipear-taighe I have been gathering imagery of all the small things from the moor and on my last visit to Lewis I visited Alison Macleod in her studio. She is a textile designer/artist from The Isle of Lewis whose designs are inspired by her... Read More ›
Sexy Peat/Tìr mo Rùin
Artist Diary 24 July - Fabric Lenny Sketchbook
Follow Fabric Lenny’s Peatland blog: http://fabriclenny.blogspot.co.uk/ 24 July: iPad to Press – Photo Polymer Photogravure After having had a few days to reflect on my time in Scotland as part of the Sexy Peat project, I can now reveal that it was a truly amazing experience. The two weeks on Lewis exploring the Peatlands and... Read More ›
Land, language, life on the Lewis moor
Alice Starmore, Donald S. Murray
Lewis artist, designer, photographer and author Alice Starmore writes in Earthlines of the cultural and ecological values of peatlands, and the threats they face not only as a result of climate change, but from the installation of large-scale windfarms. http://www.earthlines.org.uk/Assets/Text,%20pdfs/AliceStarmore.pdf SPHAGNUM MOSS Sphagnum moss remembers. It recalls the touchdown of each lark that tumbles... Read More ›
Sea Change in Green World
Arts & Ecology Issue, edited by James Brady: http://www.greenworld.org.uk/
See the article by Ruth Little on the Sea Change programme, along with pieces by Clive Adams, Dave Pritchard, Peter Gingold and Wallace Heim, and Jai Redman: www.greenworld.org.uk Read More ›
The Swan Northern Isles Expedition
See the 2013 Expedition site
In August 2013, Sea Change set sail with two crews of artists and scientists from Orkney to Shetland via Fair Isle. Sailing on 113-year-old community owned Shetland Fyfie The Swan, the journey took us around Scotland’s most northerly coasts and islands. Click here for Expedition site > Read More ›
Supported by
- Jon and NoraLee Sedmak
- With the support of the
Culture Programme of the European Union
as part of the Green Art Lab Alliance (GALA) 
