Sagduction…..OISF Programme……
by Bernie Bell - 08:24 on 14 July 2025
Sagduction…..
I’d never heard of it – but I have now….
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OISF Programme 2025……
“Hello from the Festival!
We’re writing to say that this year’s programme is now online, with a rich mix of themes. The dates are 4-10 September.
https://oisf.org/oisf/festival-programme-2025/
This year’s bicentenary of the birth of the great Orkney folklorist Walter Traill Dennison gives us the opportunity to look at how old stories can lead to fresh insights today. We’ll hear for instance of the old legend in his native Sanday about “the bonnie woods o’ Otterswick” – and we’ll hear about the remnants brought up today from beneath the sand.
From the neighbouring island of North Ronaldsay, with its native seaweed-eating sheep and wool mill, links have been opened with other tradtional sheepkeeping islands to discuss Island Sheep and Island Futures. Visitors are coming from Faroe and Iceland, Berneray too, and we’ll hear news from the Aran Islands. There’s an opportunity to see a traditional Norse cloak recreated, and to learn to cook Icelandic lamb, and to hear of new markets opening for native wool and meat, from the Arctic to Ireland.
https://oisf.org/portfolio-items/island-sheep-and-island-futures/
We’ve visited the island of Shapinsay, to see the record in the rocks of a lava flow from an ancient volcano, and also the debris from an ice flow 15,000 years ago. It’s part of our new film As Old as the Hills, on the theme of geological time, which takes us from Scaraben and Smean in Caithness, mountains with origins deep in time, to Brinkie’s Brae in Stromness, once a granite island in the great Lake Orcadie. The film features stunning new panoramic drone sequences and provides a deep insight into understanding the geology of the whole of the north.
A North Sea island the size of Graemsay has come into the news this year. Helgoland is where the 23-year-old Werner Heisenberg retreated 100 years ago with hay fever and completed the work which laid the foundations of quantum theory. We’re marking the centenary with a fresh look from several speakers into the nature of the quantum world – to explain it in a newer and clearer way, and go Beyond Helgoland. They’ll get help from a poet and several musicians. We’ll also hear the latest news about the efforts to create a quantum computer – and a quantum camera as well. And the director of the Helgoland Museum will join us for a concert of music in St Magnus Cathedral themed around the island and the Heisenberg story.
https://oisf.org/portfolio-items/beyond-helgoland/
The artwork for this year's festival was created by Selena S. Kuzman, inspired by the quantum centenary for the island of Helgoland with its red sandstone like Hoy, and by Orkney folk stories of selkies and mermaids and links to the modern world.
We're going to take a completely fresh look to the question of climate change – and the kind of practical action that is now needed to cope with its consequences, with food security particularly to the fore. In An Orkney Climate COP we will look at island strategies for the future – in Energy, in Food, in Housing, and in Transport, and ask the audience to assess.
https://oisf.org/portfolio-items/an-orkney-climate-cop-2025/
And we welcome the British Astronomical Association who are coming with speakers on topics from comets and the aurora to the search for the very earliest stars and galaxies.
There is much more, as you can see from the Festival website, along with further updates on the way on the Facebook page.
With sunny thoughts from the Festival team and we hope you will be able to join us for our 35th Festival!
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