The Hebridean Dark Skies Festival presents a series of interviews with fascinating people from the worlds of astronomy, psychology, and the arts, exploring our festival themes of winter, darkness and the night sky. The podcasts are presented by festival director Andrew Eaton-Lewis, with sound mixed by Hamish Brown.
The Hebridean Dark Skies Festival is an ambitious annual programme of events taking place each February on the Isle of Lewis, including live music, film, visual art, theatre, astronomy talks, and stargazing. To find out more visit www.lanntair.com/darkskies.
The festival is led by An Lanntair arts centre in Stornoway in partnership with Stornoway Astronomical Society, Calanais Visitor Centre, Gallan Head Community Trust, and Lews Castle College UHI. The festival is supported by Caledonian MacBrayne, Highlands and Islands Enterprise and the Culture & Business Fund. For its first three years it was part-financed by the Scottish Government and the European Community Outer Hebrides Leader 2014-2020 programme.
What do sunsets mean to you? Artist Juliana Capes describes how grief, a fascination with colour, and her work with visually impaired people all shaped Sunset Reports, a film in which she describes an entire sunset, moment by moment.
21 Jan 2022
Roberto Trotta and Laura Cameron-Lewis
An Italian astrophysicist and a Hebridean theatre director discuss ancient storytelling traditions, how language shapes the way we think, interstellar travel, aliens, climate change, dark matter, and the end of the Universe, as they work together on a unique new show, The Edge of the Sky | Oir Nan Speur.
7 Jan 2022
Catherine Heymans and Joe Zuntz
How do you make astronomy funny? Scotland's Astronomer Royal Catherine Heymans is joined by comedy partner and fellow astrophysicist Joe Zuntz to discuss dark matter jokes, why astronomers love puns, and making maps of the Universe.
12 Feb 2021
Bethany Rigby
Designer and researcher Bethany Rigby is the creator of Outer Hebrides // Outer Space, a new project exploring the astronomical significance of the Hebrides. She discusses Scottish place names on Mars, the history of shooting stars, and why St Kilda is like a location from a science fiction film.
5 Feb 2021
Sheona Urquhart
Sheona Urquhart is an astrophysicist who studies the evolution of galaxies, telling stories about cosmic events on an unimaginable scale. She discusses studying distant galaxies from Hawaii, making TV with Brian Cox, and why astronomers often make good musicians.
29 Jan 2021
Renzo Spiteri
Should lockdown encourage us to listen to our immediate surroundings in a new way? We talk to composer and sound artist Renzo Spiteri, who creates music from field recordings of the landscape near his home on Shetland.
22 Jan 2021
Kari Leibowitz
Can 'wintertime mindset' strategies make us happier during the coldest, darkest months of the year? We talk to American health psychologist Kari Leibowitz, who has seen a new wave of interest in her work since the COVID-19 lockdown.
15 Jan 2021
Karine Polwart
We chat to Scottish singer-songwriter Karine Polwart about art, UFOs, drunken elks, nuclear power, jam cupboards, Greek mythology, and her new theatre show inspired by the science of supernovas.
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