Saturday 29th November: The Eagle With The Sunlit Eye at Berriedale Portland Hall 6.30pm – 9pm
Hosted by  local crofter Megan Rowland
Local venison stew courtesy of Welbeck Estate and Laidhay Tearoom

The White Tailed Eagle is one of the largest birds of prey on the planet. We persecuted it to extinction in Britain a century ago – and then we brought it back. Can we learn to look it in the eye? Join us on an unforgettable journey into the heart of one of the most remarkable wildlife comebacks ever witnessed

Saturday 28th June: Overbooking at JOG Mill 6.30pm – 9pm
Hosted by Dr. Guillem Colom-Monte, Lecturer of Hispanic Studies at the University of Glasgow & local writer Gail Anthea Brown.
Traditional Mallorcan Arroz Brut provided by Printers Rest

Overbooking critically reflects about the history and effects of mass tourism on the Mediterranean island of Majorca from its beginnings in the 1950s up to the late 2010s, offering a particularly rich and nuanced perspective about mass tourism on the island. At a time of growing global awareness about tourism’s impact on the environment and on the everyday life of local communities, Overbooking creatively looks at the challenges that mass tourism poses in relation to society, culture and climate emergency

Across February and March 2024, Lyth Arts Centre presented Climate Beacons Film Festival 2024, a film programme focused on climate issues in Scotland and beyond, covering themes like Scottish deer management, remote environmentalism, ancestral knowledge and indigenous practice, and global industrial impact and land use. Each screening took place in a carefully chosen and thematic location – a Highland estate, a forest croft, a nature reserve, a community hall next to a stone quarry. Each event was hosted by a special guest(s) to create space for conversation, engagement and a chance for everyone present to dissect the themes.

‘The winters are long and dark here, it’s really important for us to be able to offer our communities ‘beacon’ events to gather, share food and get into the nitty gritty of what climate action in the North Highlands is and could be.’ Sinéad Hargan, Climate Beacons Programme Curator

Climate Beacons 2024 Film Festival Programme:

Thursday 15th Feb : The Cull at Berriedale Hall 6.30pm – 8.30pm
Hosted by local artist Patricia Niemann
Food prepared by Col Gordon with venison provided by Wellbeck Estate 

The Cull is an award-winning documentary that explores the controversial topic of deer management in the Scottish Highlands, illustrating the complexity of a debate which has been going on for decades.

Thursday 22nd Feb : Uyra: The Rising Forest at Newton Hill Croft 6.30pm – 8.30pm
Hosted by  Sinéad Hargan and Wick High School Drama Teacher and co-founder of the Wick High School LGBTQ Club, Amy Watt.
Locally foraged Mocktails were served up from Nature’s Path, Natural Ways.

Uyra: The Rising Forest a story by Uýra Sodoma, directed By Juliana Curi. Uýra, a trans-indigenous artist travels through the Amazon forest on a journey of self-discovery using performance art and ancestral messages to teach indigenous youth and confront structural racism and transphobia in Brazil.

Sunday 3rd march : Geographies of Solitude at Forsinard 3pm – 5pm
Hosted by researchers from the UHI Environmental Research Institute,
Herby stew was served alongside the film courtesy Thurso Community Cafe 

A guided walk before the film was led by Milly Revill Hayward from RSBP highlands & Islands, an opportunity for attendees to understand the surrounding ecology and fieldwork that happens year-round at Forsinard Flows, 

Zoe Lucas is an environmentalist who has lived on remote Sable Island for over 40 years documenting marine litter that persistently washes up on the island’s shores. An immersion into the rich ecosystem of Sable Island, a remote sliver of land in the Northwest Atlantic, GEOGRAPHIES OF SOLITUDE follows Zoe Lucas, a naturalist and environmentalist who has lived there for over 40 years collecting, cleaning and documenting marine litter that persistently washes up on the island’s shores.

Thursday 7th March : Anthropocene: The Human Epoch at Spittal Hall 6.30pm – 8.30pm
Hosted by Luisa Hendry aka The Scottish Geologist
Food prepared and served by Col Gordon 

Anthropocene: The Human Epoch is a stunning sensory experience and cinematic meditation on humanity’s massive reengineering of the planet. The film follows the research of an international body of scientists, who, after nearly 10 years of research, argue that the Holocene Epoch gave way to the Anthropocene Epoch in the mid-twentieth century as a result of profound and lasting human changes to the Earth.

Climate Beacons 2023 screened a series of films in various locations throughout Caithness and East Sutherland, which focussed on climate issues in Scotland and beyond, covering themes like land justice, fishing & forestry, sea lore & coastal ecology and common land practices. We hoped to give reasons and opportunities for folks to gather and engage in conversations around climate related issues that feel relevant and pertinent to Caithness and East Sutherland. 

If you attended a Climate Beacons event, you probably met Col…

Col Gordon is a researcher and farmer’s son who’s based near Invergordon in Easter Ross, where he grows heritage grains and helps his father raise livestock. He narrated and co-produced the podcast series “Landed” with Farmerama Radio, which investigates the past, present and future of the family farm model through the lens of colonialism.

Col’s also a director/ trustee of numerous organisations including The Shieling Project, Highland Good Food Partnership and Scotland the Bread as well as an advisor to the Gaia Foundation’s Seed Sovereignty programme.

Col will be helping to host the Climate Beacon’s events.

Climate Beacons 2023 Film Festival Programme:

Friday 20th of January : 6pm – 9pm Bower Village Hall
Hosted by local artist Sinead Hargan
Mexican cuisine prepared by Taco East 

An evening of short films from across the world exploring community-led land justice and grass roots climate action. The film screenings will be interspersed with provocations for conversations around land ownership and usage in Caithness and ideas and future visions for Bower Art Garden.

Friday 27th of January : Reay Village Hall
Hosted by Magnus Davidson, socio-economics manager at Dounreay
Burns night Haggis, Neeps and Tatties courtesy of Thurso Community Cafe served with a hot toddy
2pm – 4pm Ferngully: The Last Rainforest in collaboration with Reay Young-Stars
The magical inhabitants of a rainforest fight to save their home, which is threatened by logging and a polluting force of destruction called Hexxus.
6pm –  8.30pm Local Hero
Local Hero has a thematic beating heart that was frequently overlooked in 1983: our stubborn reluctance to accept either the reality of environmental crisis or our responsibility for bringing it about in the first place.

Friday 10th of February : Bait at Brora Fishermans Hall 6.30pm – 8.30pm
Hosted by Julian Grant, a PhD candidate at UHI
Homemade soup and crusty bread prepared by Col Gordon along with baking by local Sugar Plum baking. 

Martin Ward is a cove fisherman, without a boat. His brother Steven has re-purposed their father’s vessel as a tourist tripper, driving a wedge between the brothers. With their childhood home now a get away for London money, Martin is displaced to the estate above the picturesque harbour.

Friday 27th February : Seaweed at Wick Heritage Centre 6.30pm – 8pm
Hosted by local artist Sinead Hargan
A selection of seaweed ramen broths and snacks provided by Wick based company Shore 

Seaweed is a short experimental documentary by Julia Parks which investigates the folklore, ecology and history of seaweed in the north of Scotland.

Friday 3rd March : Riverwoods in the Ulbster Arms Halkirk 7pm – 9.30pm
Hosted by Col Gordon & Sinead Hargan
Canapes provided by the Ulbster Arms Hotel 

Riverwoods is a spectacular feature-length documentary that shines a light on the perilous state of Scotland’s salmon, and tells the compelling story of a fish that lives in the forest. And in the soil that feeds the forest. And in the predators, scavengers and even herbivores of the forest. Scotland’s Atlantic salmon – the King of Fish – is not only the ultimate angler’s prize, but a key building block in a complex forest ecosystem.

Thursday 9th March : Arcadia at Freswick Castle 7pm – 9.30pm 
Hosted by Col Gordon & Sinead Hargan
Canapes provided by Col Gordon and drinks served by the local Ice and Fire Distillery

Scouring 100 years of archive footage, Paul Wright constructs an exhilarating study of the British people’s shifting, and contradictory, relationship to the land. Arcadia goes on a sensory, visceral journey through the contrasting seasons, taking in folk carnivals and fetes , masked parades, water divining and harvesting . Wright’s captivating film essay captures the beauty and brutality, and the magic and madness of rural Britain.

The Bare Project have created a short film from their time at Lyth Arts Centre in Caithness and offer the sketched beginnings of the giants they discovered in their time here.

The film was created through a collaboration between filmmaker Regina Mosch, artist/researcher Malaika Cunningham, and sound designer/composer Lee Affen.

Watch the film below…

The Land for Those that Work It: Caithness and East Sutherland Climate Beacon 

In collaboration with Timespan and the Environmental Research Institute (University of Highlands & Islands), we’ve been selected as a Creative Carbon Scotland Climate Beacon for a collaborative engagement programme around the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26). Titled The Land for Those That Work It, our Climate Beacon will look at issues of land justice, development policies and initiatives for our region, and climate colonialism. 

Alongside new commissions, we will be launching a podcast of discussions and artist radio broadcasts and launching our travelling community cinema across Caithness and Sutherland.

As part The Land for Those That Work It LAC has commissioned The People’s Palace of Possibility in collaboration with The Bare Project and the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (University of Glasgow). The People’s Palace of Possibility will recruit Palace Citizens, made up of young people and local groups, to challenge the prevailing consensus on land and climate justice through radical acts of imagination. 

Timespan will also be assembling a working group of community organisers, historians and lawyers to commission an actionable immigration policy for the Highlands based on social justice, the Highland’s role in Empire, reparations, the asymmetric violence of climate change and land redistribution. 

This project will put Caithness and Sutherland at the heart of global climate conversations, prioritising rural and coastal voices in a field when they are often ignored.

Please check the website and socials for updates and info on how to get involved!