Floating Market postcard (recto)

Tracing the Natural World is supported by the British Council’s Connections Through Culture programme and aims to connect Orkney and Vietnam through film, sound, and sensory perception, exploring how place is experienced through everyday life.

In Orkney, participants reflected on the uniqueness of place and how filmmaking could communicate their relationship to the landscape. Through attention to daily routines, close observation, movement, and sensory engagement, they explored the poetry of the everyday environment and developed a deeper awareness of the world around them.

Rather than presenting climate change as a singular visible event, the films consider environmental change as gradual, subtle, and at times difficult to perceive. The project creates space for participants in both places to learn how others live, sense, and respond to a changing world.

Join Orkney artist Louise Barrington to learn more about the project at the Pier Arts Centre on Saturday 16 May, 2:30-4:30pm. Admission is Free

Alongside the films, participants created postcards reflecting their own experience of place. These responses ranged from sunrises and local symbols to moments of movement and play, offering personal reflections on what defines home, memory, and connection. The postcards became a way of considering both differences and shared experience between the two countries. 

Floating Market postcard (verso)

The project forms part of an ongoing exchange, where these observations enter into dialogue with responses from Vietnam.