The Selkie’s new clothes

“The coastline, always changing with the tide, is where seals and people meet as selkies. It is a nowhere place and yet it is all they have.”

The old legend of the selkie re-emerges to express the deep challenges of the present day. The story of shapeshifting, of the skin which enables the transition between the human and natural worlds, crossing the uncertain boundary zone of the shore, is one of transformation. This performance piece, specially created for the Year of Coasts and Waters, merges in a poetic way the folk stories of the selkie people with the transformation of waste materials and our deep connection with the sea and the land, and our quest to find a world in which we are at home.

Selkie song by Katarina Juvančič

Performance piece was first premiered on YouTube for Orkney Science Festival.