Dark Skies

Nick Dunn is Professor of Urban Design and Executive Director of Imagination, the design and architecture research lab at Lancaster University, UK. He is founding Director of the Dark Design Lab, exploring the impacts of nocturnal activity on humans and non-humans. Nick is a Director of DarkSky UK, promoting more sustainable relationships between the built environment and the night, as well as exploring ways to promote wider and inclusive participation with dark skies. He is the author of Dark Matters: A Manifesto for the Nocturnal City (2016) and co-editor of Rethinking Darkness: Cultures, Histories, Practices (2020). Nick is a keen nightwalker, has curated exhibitions, and given invited talks at both literature and science festivals.Tim Edensor is Professor of Social and Cultural Geography at the Institute of Place Management, Manchester Metropolitan University. He is the author of Tourists at the Taj (1998), National Identity, Popular Culture and Everyday Life (2002), Industrial Ruins: Space, Aesthetics and Materiality (2005), From Light to Dark: Daylight, Illumination and Gloom (2017) and Stone: Stories of Urban Materiality (2020). He is the editor of Geographies of Rhythm (2010), and co-editor of The Routledge Handbook of Place (2020), Rethinking Darkness: Cultures, Histories, Practices (2020) and Weather: Spaces, Mobilities and Affects (2020). His most recent book, about a Scottish medieval cross, is Landscape, Materiality and Heritage: An Object Biography (2022).

• Part One: IntroductionDark skies: meanings, challenges and relationshipsTim Edensor and Nick DunnPart Two: Creative engagements with dark placesCreative approaches to dark skies research: a dialogue between two artist-researchersNatalie Marr and Helen McGhie Dark skies in southern Scotland and northern England: border-crossing sites for creative experiment and envisioning connectednessYsanne Holt The Transparency of NightLouise Beer Part Three: Sensing dark landscapesNightfalling: Dancing in the dark as an artistic practiceEllen Jeffrey Sensing Dark Places: Creating thick descriptions of nocturnal time and rhythmRupert Griffiths, Nick Dunn and Elisabeth de Bezenac Considering festive Illuminations in Dark Sky places: honouring darkness, creative innovation and placeTim Edensor and Dan Oakley Part Four: Non-human entanglements with dark skies Nature’s calendar, clock and compass: what happens when it’s disrupted?Theresa Jones and Marty Lockett Preserving Darkness in the WildwoodKimberly Dill Darkening Cities as Urban RestorationTaylor Stone Part Five: Dark sky communitiesDesigning with the DarkKerem Asfuroglu Who is afraid under dark skies? Four female experts about ‘spaces of fear’, astronomy and the loss of the night Nona Schulte-Romer What do we mean by “dark skies”?Yee-Man Lam Part Six: Dark sky tourismTread Softly in the DarkGeorgia MacMillan, Hannah Dalgleish, Therese Conway and Marie Mahon Nocturnal (Dark) Anthropology: Spotlight on an Ancient Indian CivilizationNeha Khetrapal Beauty Won’t Save the Starry Night: Astro-Tourism and the Astronomical SublimeDwayne C. Avery Part Seven: ConclusionUnder the night: values and futures of dark skiesNick Dunn and Tim Edensor