ENERGY ETHICS 2026: INFRASTRUCTURES OF ENERGY

 

I am delighted to have had two proposals selected for this annual conference to take place from 4 to 6 August at University of St Andrews: a presentation and screening of three films both online and in person at the conference - Landscape in Pain #164615072023, Anunder and Trembling Earth. The title of my presentation is Landscape in Pain. It is part of the double session called Island Energy v Energy Islands  on 4 August. I will present my work in Landscape in Pain as part of on-going public dialogue which questions the value of industrial scale mining of our natural resources and raises concerns about our health, land and sea.  How can we achieve sustainability in island communities, and leverage renewable resources without causing harm, risk of depopulation and irreparable damage to our environmental and social ecosystems? There is a resurgence of concern among Shetlanders that new developments, e.g., onshore and offshore wind farms, substations, pylons, a battery park, ammonia and hydrogen plants are leading to disproportionate industrialisation.

Arctic Arts Summit - Land, Power, Art       Relate North - Show and Tell, 17 June 2026

 

It was such a privilege to participate in the Arctic Arts Summit (16-18 June), and especially to take part in Relate North - Show and Tell, the annual symposium and exhibition hosted by the ASAD (Arctic Sustainable Arts and Design) UArctic Thematic Network UArctic under the theme Land, Power, Art. The event was held at the Project Space, Umeå Institute of Design, Arts Campus, Umeå University in Sweden.  I exhibited my film Trembling Earth and a research poster about our project, Northern Connections, highlighting the work realised by our UHI Shetland Team with Hamnavoe and Foula Primary Schools in Shetland alongside our collaborative partners at Nord University Nesna Campus and University of Lapland with their respective schools.

Millions paid out to keep Shetland windfarm idle – even in a gale

 

Every now and then I am contacted by a journalist or someone writing a book or making a film. It was a pleasure to speak with Jon Ungoed-Thomas, the News Reporter for The Observer newspaper who wrote the article 'Millions paid out to keep Shetland windfarm idle – even in a gale'. He was following up an article they'd recently published questioning the wastage in UK wind farms. This article, published on 19 April 2026, explorets the fact that the operator  SSE Renewables is paid £10m a year to turn off the 103 turbines in the Viking Energy Wind Farm because the national grid lacks transmission capacity.

Relate North 2025

 

My work was selected for this exhibition, Lessons of the Land. Artists and makers from across the Circumpolar North take part in this international online exhibition in November 2025, presented as part of Relate North 2025, the annual symposium and exhibition organised by the ASAD (Arctic Sustainable Arts and Design) network of the University of the Arctic. The exhibition brings together visual artworks, craft, and digital expressions that reflect how the land shapes identity, learning, and belonging.Three images were exhibited which are stills from an in-progress film, Reverberations, which is about soil and industrial scale wind farms.  

Lessons of the Land,

Launched 3 November 2025

 

I co-authored a chapter with Wenche Sørmo, Mette Gårdvik and Karin Still about the project Nordic Connections for this twelfth volume in the Relate North series. The book explores art, design, craft, and education in the North, Arctic, and near-Arctic regions, bringing together diverse perspectives on Land-Based education in the arts. Contributors recognise the Land as a vibrant teacher, with agency that shapes learning on, through, and with the Land. Indigenous pedagogies and research inform these chapters, offering insights into how creative practices, wellbeing, and worldviews are deeply interconnected with the Land.​

Holm Sound. EPISODE NINE: SURVEY, 

30 Oct 2025

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"We oversee, oversea and overland. A reckoning of time and a reckoning of place, broadcast live from Papay, Orkney with surveyor/contributors from near at hand and far-off lands. Holm Sound returned for a special one-off episode to survey the surveyors."  I was honoured to take part in this episode of Holm Sound, for which contributors included: Amy Liptrot, writer, seaweed collector and mum, Autumn Richardson, poet, editor and publisher, Frances Scott, artist and maker of maps, Amanda Thomson, artist/writer, Gayle Brogan, sonic alchemist, Roxane Permar, artist, Saoirse Higgins & Jonathan Ford, SurvØY artists

Eco-Social #15, Landscapes in Pain,

25 Oct 2025​

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It was an absolute pleasure to be invited to take part in Eco-Social #15 during my visit to Philadelphia in October 2025. Landscapes in Pain at Wheaton Arts and Cultural Center (Millville, NJ).  The event started with a tour of the solo exhibition by Kristen Neville Taylor “Come Into View” (on view from Sept 27 – Nov 1, 2025). After the tour I gave a presention about Landscape in Pain my ongoing project that forms the heart of a multi-layered visual and social response to construction of the industrial scale Viking Energy Wind Farm in Shetland.​​​

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TELEPHONE  Launched 10 October 2025

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I was really pleased to take part in TELEPHONE, an online exhibition presented in the form of a digital game played by artists. My film, Transmission, is included in the project. I consider it to be very much a part of Landscape in Pain as I was thinking about the Viking Energy Wind Farm. The project consists of 1,395 individual, interconnected and original works by artists from 930 cities in 65 countries. It works like the children’s game of the same name. A message is whispered from person to person and changes and evolves as it is passed from player to player.​​​​​​​​​​​​​

HOMEMADE 2025

 

My film Anunder was selected for screening in Homemade 2025 at the Mareel Cinema in Lerwick, Shetland.  The two-day event took place this past weekend, with screenings on Saturday 6 September (which included the audience vote) and Sunday 7 September. Homemade is an annual event where local filmmakers are invited to submit their short films, with no rules other than they must be four minutes (or less) in length. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​

​Kindred: Living in the Landscape 2025  

 

​I took part in this international and interdisciplinary summer school  online in March and in person from 19 to 23 May in Nesna, Norway hosted by Nord University. I exhibited a series of five short films, Bloodlines, and gave a presentation about my art practice and research in relation to the idea of kinship. I am grateful to Shetland Arts and Creative Scotland for financial support through VACMA, the Visual Arts and Craftmakers Award.  The Living in the Landscape (LiLa) summer school is organised annually by the University of the Arctic’s thematic network,  Arctic Sustainable Art and Design (ASAD).

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SUCCESSFUL VACMA 2024/25 WINTER APPLICANTS ANNOUNCED  

 

I am grateful to receive one of six VACMA awards given by Shetland Arts Development Agency and Creative Scotland to participate in Kindred: Living in the Landscape 2025, an international exhibition and event in Norway; and to research a project between Shetland and Norway exploring the power of islands through cross-cultural and inter-generational dialogue. The new work for exhibition in Norway will be developed further to show in Shetland. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Islands Symposium 3,4 April 2025 

 

I was delighted to give one of the Keynote Presentations, 'Bloodlines: Kinship and Division in Island Power', for The Islands Symposium organised by Laura Denning (University of Portsmouth) and Dr Iain Robertson (UHI).  The Symposium grew out of an extended arts research project that Laura has been developing as part of a British Academy Small Research Grant – initially working under the umbrella of Wet Ontologies, a 2-year exploration of living with the weather as a lens through which to understand kinship.​​​

Islands Matter Seminar

 

On 18 March 2025 I led a seminar - The Landscape in Pain: Art for Shifting Relations with the Land - for  Islands Matter, regular guest seminar sessions orgnised by the UHI Institute for Northern Studies.  The environmental, social, cultural, and economic changes occurring in rural Scotland and across geographically remote communities in the northern and Arctic region are charged with far reaching geopolitical consequences as well as human and environmental impact that require multiple voices in dialogue. I used my project Landscape in Pain to consider how art and social based practices can deal with issues that threaten society,  particularly issues around climate change which involve the industrialisation of natural resources and new forms of colonisation. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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Living in the Landscape 2024

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In November I took part in the exhibition Flow: Currents of Change in our River Landscapes along with some of our amazing students from the MA Art in Social Practice. The exhibition was the culmination of  the fifth Living in the Landscape Art-based Research Methods Summer School which investigated rivers and the impact of green energy production on river landscapes.  I exhibited my new film Anunder, which I made as part of this project.

 

The international and interdisciplinary Living in the Landscape Summer School series was organised by the Arctic Sustainable Arts and Design (ASAD) Thematic Network and  coordinated by the University of Lapland. The school is run in collaboration with the Nord University of Norway, Umeå University, University of the Highlands and Islands and University of the West of Scotland. The participating students from these institutions study Art, Education, Nature Sciences, Creative Media Practice, Fashion, Art and Social Practice, Mathematics at MA and PhD level. The 2024 school was launched in March and the Online seminar phase lasted until mid-May. The school continued by undertaking  fieldwork in Rovaniemi, Lapland, Finland in late May. The exhibition opening and the publication launch took place at the RELATE NORTH symposium in Rovaniemi, in November 2024. The Lapland Provincial Museum served as a cross-sectoral partner. The development of the summer school was supported by the Nordplus Horizontal program and funding from the Norwegian UArctic.​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Homemade, Mareel Cinema,                                 6 September 2024

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​My short film Windlins (2023) was selected for screening in Homemade, a popular component of Shetland's former annual film festival Screenplay. The film was also exhibited at Umeå University in the exhibition Nurture in November 2023. The publication about the project and exhibition is downloadable here: lauda.ulapland.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/65700/978-952-337-400-3.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y 

Arctic Congress 

 

In May 2024 I was privileged to attend the Arctic Congress in Bodø, Norway, a wonderful town in the Arctic Circle. One of my films from Landscape in Pain #164615072023 was included in the exhibition New Genre Arctic Art.  I also organised a panel called 'Art and social practice in support of young people dealing with societal threats' that featured four colleagues from the Arctic Sustainable Art and Design (ASAD) Network of the University of the Arctic.  We gave three presentations: 1) 'Dealing with Environmental Challenges in the Arctic - The Marine Debris Project' by Mette Gårdvik, Associate Professor in Art Education; Wenche Sørmo, Dr.Scient. Associate Professor in Natural Science; Karin Stoll, Associate Professor in Natural Science Education; all three presenters are researchers at Nord Universitet, Nesna Campus. 2) 'Communities in Artistic Dialogue - Sharing the visualisations of the Arctic’ by DA Annamari Manninen, Lecturer in Art Education, University of Lapland and 3) 'The Landscape in Pain: Art for shifting relations with the land - Roxane Permar, Professor in Art and Social Practice, Centre for Island Creativity, UHI Shetland, University of the Highlands and Islands. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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Relate North 2023: Beyond Borders

 

I gave a presentation titled 'Climate crisis, extractivism and social art practice in Shetland', at the 11th annual Relate North research symposium and exhibition organised by the University of the Arctic’s thematic network, Arctic Sustainable Arts and Design (ASAD 14-17 November.  This year it was organised in collaboration with the Department of Creative Studies, Umeå University, and the University of Lapland. I showed some of my recent work from Landscape in Pain (2023) in which I continue to try to make visible the extractivist principles and practices which threaten to destabilise communities such as Shetland through industrialisation and exploitation of natural resources in the drive to tackle the climate crisis. Information about the Symposium and Exhibition is here.

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SCPR Network: The Cultural Sector and the Climate Emergency

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I was delighted to speak at this event on 26 October 2023 at the University of Aberdeen organised by Professor Eleanor Belfiore. It was the third event in a programme aimed to develop a Scottish Cultural Policy Research Network which brings together cultural policy research experts working in Scotland, including policymakers, consultants, artists, businesses, and other actors in the Scottish creative economy, to facilitate knowledge exchange, collaboration and policy and industry impact. Some of the key sector issues include: the creative sector and post-covid recovery in Scotland (including the challenges and opportunities for young artists entering the job market); the role of arts and culture in addressing climate change and the commitment to net-zero; Scotland’s international image and role post-Brexit, and cultural relations.

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Image credt: Rowan Bazley, Floorpainting V (The Glasgow School of Art, Fine Art, 2022).​​

Pollution from Wind Turbines

 

I organised this talk at UHI Shetland, Scalloway Campus, on 23 November 2022. Over 50 people attended, a good turnout in light of little publicity. The audience was both in person in the lecture theatre and online. The online audience included people from Canada, Ireland, Greece, the Netherlands, mainland Scotland and the Scottish isles, Norway, Iceland, Finland and Sweden.  We recorded the talk and you can access it here. ​​

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Landscape in Pain was selected by the organisation Earth Hackers for their new zine. 

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Community, culture, and belonging are key pieces of humanity often set upon the back burner of technological development – normalizing technologies destructive to people and the planet. This digital zine investigates these themes through the lenses of environmental justice and technology. Ten multi-media creative works and three honourable mentions that explore these ideas are here

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Image from the Environmental Justice in Tech Educator Toolkit

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Landscape in Pain: Shetland’s industrial scale wind farm and solastalgia

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I wrote this article about Landscape in Pain for the academic journal, Technical Aesthetics and Design Research.  It is a is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal whose goal is to form an interdisciplinary platform for research in the fields of design and architecture.  I finished corrections for the final proof not long before the invasion of Ukraine.  I was very excited to have an article published in a Russian publication and was particularly pleased with the northern and Arctic context for my body of work where I see links between the exploitation of natural resources in the Arctic, largely mining and potentially oil, and Shetland, where it is wind. Of course I was devastated, like so many, including Russian colleagues and friends, to see events unfold in Ukraine around the time everything was finished.  I was hesitant to include the news here. I am still not certain I should share the information, but at the time of writing (August 2022) I feel inclined to do so.  I will figure out a different way to make the article accessible in future.  The article is based on my talk in November 2021 at the International symposium, Relate North 2021: Everyday Extremes organised by Tomsk State University with the University of Lapland and the Arctic Sustainable Arts and Design (ASAD) thematic network of the University of the Arctic.

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Image: Landscape in Pain #037420210606​​​​​​​​​​​​​

9th Annual Symposium & Exhibition, the Arctic Sustainable Arts and Design Network, 11 and 12 November

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I'm delighted that my work has been selected for this annual event, both for the exhibition and the symposium. I am speaking on 11 November. The talks are being streamed live on You Tube and you can watch the recordings here for Day 1 and Day 2. The event is a collaboration between the University of the Arctic’s Arctic Sustainable Arts and Design thematic network (ASAD), National Research Tomsk State University, and University of Lapland. This will be the ninth symposium in the series hosted by ASAD. The ASAD network aims to identify and share innovative practices in learning, teaching, research and knowledge exchange in the fields of art, design and visual culture education. The network promotes cooperation and collaboration between academic institutions and communities with the purpose of working towards a shared understanding of critical issues relevant to people living in the north.​​

Häufig müssen wir zwischen zwei Übeln entscheiden: Wie wires auch anstellen.

 

This article is written by Hanspeter Spörri in response to my work that was in the exhibition in Switzerland «Verborgene Blumen blühen am schönsten» (Hidden Flowers Bloom Beautifully).  I'm delighted that the installation of my work, and Dorothea Rust's film, motivated him to question, to write and to publish in the September 2021 edition of the monthly magazine, APPENZELLER MAGAZIN, local to the area where the exhibition was held.​​

Hidden Flowers Bloom Most Beautifully

 

is a collaborative exhibition between the artists collective Streunender Hund based in Appenzell Ausserrhoden, Switzerland, and artists from the Shetland Islands, in the United Kingdom. The exhibition is concurrently in Shetland and Appenzell Ausserrhoden during August 2021. Half of the works in each place  consist of local art, the other half of art from afar. In preparation for the exhibition, artists from Shetland and Switzerland have engaged in dialogue in pairs.  Details of these dialogues are integrated into the exhibitions and presented as research material. I have been in conversation with the artist Dorothea Rust. The exhibition opened in Shetland on 31 July at Mareel.  More information here.​​

Landscape of Mutability

 

I'm pleased to be part of the online exhibition organised by researchers in the Arts Lab, University of Glasgow, who are exploring cultural representations of landscape and the effects of transformation, dislocation and mutability. In order to expand their research network within Scotland and to maintain a sense of community, they sent blank postcards to colleagues in academia, in organisations and among artists around Scotland, in addition to those outwith Scotland engaging with Scottish landscape. We were all asked to use each postcard as a canvas on which to express – in images, words, or other forms – the changing nature of the landscape in their lived perception. This online exhibition brings togetherpostcards in a map with a timeline. Together they provide a glimpse of landscape experiences across Scotland (and beyond) and highlight a variety of interactions with landscapes under circumstances of limited mobility.​​​​​​​​​​​