Island Technology

Sea Change / Tionndadh na Mara

Swan1-600x415Cape Farewell’s Northern Isles Expedition 

From 19 August – 8 September Cape Farewell sails from Orkney to Shetland via Fair Isle with 2 crews of 11 artists and scientists on the 113-year-old Shetland community boat, the Swan. Sailors include Ursula Biemann, Julie Brook, James Brady, David Cross, John Cumming, Bryony Lavery, Ruth Maclennan, Deirdre Nelson, Karine Polwart, Inge Thomson, Jennifer Wilcox, Tom Rand and Tam Treanor. Along with scientists from the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton and the International Centre for Island Technology, Heriot-Watt University, the artists will pursue research and new collaborations relating to climate impacts on ocean ecologies, fisheries, energy production and peatlands.

Sexy Peat / Tìr mo Rùin

Highland Print Studio and Cape Farewell are delighted to announce the commissioned artists for the Sexy Peat project, celebrating the ecology and heritage of the Lewis blanket bog and highlighting the significant role that peat plays in climate regulation. Alex Boyd, Anne Campbell, Jon Macleod, Kacper Kowalski, Murray Robertson and Paul Slater will follow summer residencies in Lewis with printmaking workshops in Inverness, leading to a touring exhibition of new work.

Follow Sea Change and on Twitter @CFSeaChange. 

New metaphors for sustainability: the Fetch (of a wavelength; to collect)

This post comes to you from Ashden Directory

Our series of new metaphors for sustainability continues with Annie Cattrell’s two meanings for ‘Fetch’. A visual artist, born in Glasgow, living and working in London, Annie is a tutor at the Royal College of Art and a senior research fellow in Fine Art at DeMontfort University. She was on the 2011 Cape Farewell Scottish Islands Expedition.

I was first introduced to the oceanographic term the ‘Fetch’ while visiting I.C.I.T (International Centre for Island Technology) on Orkney during a residency I undertook hosted by the Pier Arts Centre in Stromness during 2010.

The Fetch (length) of a wave can be incredibly long. For example, it could stretch from the east coast of the United States, where it might originate, and travel uninterrupted by land mass across the Atlantic Ocean, arriving on the shores of the west coast of Scotland, in particular the Orkneys, where it would then be forced to break against the coastline.

The simple equation relating to this phenomena is that the length of a wave determines the power and energy of it.

As a consequence scientists and technologists based in Orkney are trying to harness the waves to create renewable energies for the future.

The uninterrupted ‘Fetch’ length of a wave seems like a strong natural metaphor for cause and effect. The behaviour of oceans, seas and weather generally would appear to override any political or territorial boundaries and constraints, reminding us of the larger rhythms of earth systems that can so easily be damaged and altered by different types of human made pollutants.

‘Fetch’ can also mean to go and collect and is to some extent predictive and about a future intention. Collecting and harnessing ideas and ways of living more sustainably would seem to be navigating in the right direction!

If not now, when?, Primo Levi

 

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ashdenizen is edited by Robert Butler, and is the blog associated with the Ashden Directory, a website focusing on environment and performance.
The Ashden Directory is edited by Robert Butler and Wallace Heim, with associate editor Kellie Gutman. The Directory includes features, interviews, news, a timeline and a database of ecologically – themed productions since 1893 in the United Kingdom. Our own projects include ‘New Metaphors for Sustainability’, ‘Flowers Onstage’ and ‘Six ways to look at climate change and theatre’.

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