About this Event
In conjunction with The Conversation, join us for an evening of discussion, performance, and reflection with leading international dark-sky experts, artists, and academics to learn how cities can become dark-sky-friendly.
As part of the North York Moors National Park's Dark Sky Festival celebrations, we will explore how everyone can help combat light pollution, address the climate crisis, and improve environments in both urban and natural settings. Panellists will discuss how York could become the UK's first Dark Sky City.
Performance 1830 – 1900hr – Long Dead Stars
The Long Dead Stars
The Long Dead Stars write and produce electronic dance poetry (EDP). Their music and poetry emerge from walking practices of channelling and deep listening to the geological landscapes of the North York Moors, the North Yorkshire coast, and the dark skies above, connecting ground to the cosmos.
Dr Robert Wilsmore is an independent scholar, musician, author, composer, producer, collaborator, educator, and former Head of School of the Arts at York St John University. Dr Claire Hind is a Professor within the School of the Arts at York St John University, where she is the Postgraduate Research lead.
She is also a creative writer, performer, producer, and author. Their collaboration as The Long Dead Stars has produced many live events for the Dark Skies Festivals since 2024, and they have produced an album, Whitby Mudstone, performed to both regional and international audiences.
In 2026, at the Nature and Star Hub, Sutton Bank Visitors Centre, they premiered their new work Dark Core, an album inspired by walking at night to witness dark skies and to reflect on the cosmos. They have also collaborated on an academic paper on the aesthetics of deep time, in: Hind, C, & Wilsmore, W. (2025), The Mobilities of Deep Time: An Anthro-apology from The Long Dead Stars. Mobility Humanities, 4. (1). pp. 138-156.
https://www.rwilsmore.com/
www.longdeadstars.com
Interval 1900 - 1915
Panel: 1915 - 2045
Panellists include:
Rachael Jolley, Environment Editor, The Conversation
Dr Jen Hall, Associate Professor of Tourism Policy and Environmental Justice
, York St John University
Mike Hawtin, Head of Nature Recovery at North York Moors National Park
Richard Darn, Dark Skies Consultant, Astronomer & Activist
Dr Nick Dunn, Professor of Urban Design and Executive Director of Imagination, Lancaster University
Georgia MacMillan, Mayo Dark Sky Park Development Officer at National Parks & Wildlife Service
Dr Kellee Caton Lee, Professor, Thompson Rivers University, Canada
Dr Brendan Paddison, Professor of Tourism Geographies & Dean of York Business School, York St John University
2045 – 2100 Questions
Panel Biographies
Rachael Jolley is The Conversation's environment editor.
She is an award-winning magazine editor and journalist. Rachael’s work has brought international acclaim, including the British Society of Magazine Editors’ specialist editor of the year, Telegraph young science writer of the year, merit award, and the Grand Apex award 2017, as well as awards for travel journalism.
Georgia Macmillan is Mayo Dark Sky Park’s Development Officer at the National Parks and Wildlife Service, and a Research Ireland Enterprise PhD doctoral researcher in partnership with the University of Galway.
Her research examines Dark Skies in tourism, society and policy development. As a practitioner at Mayo Dark Sky Park, she manages visitor programming, education and community engagement on night-sky conservation.
In a voluntary capacity, Georgia is currently Chair of the Friends of Mayo Dark Skies Community group, Deputy Chair, and a founding board member of Dark Sky Ireland – an NGO that seeks to restore and protect Dark Skies across Ireland.
Her civil society work focuses on community engagement, policy planning and the promotion of dark-sky-friendly lighting strategies in Ireland.
Professor Nick Dunn is Executive Director of Imagination, the design-led research lab at Lancaster University, where he is also Professor of Urban Design.
His work examines the ways we think, envision and analyse the futures of people, places, and planet. Nick is a Director at DarkSky UK, working to protect dark skies for the benefit of future generations.
He is the author of Dark Matters: A Manifesto for the Nocturnal City (Zero, 2016) and Dark Futures: When the Lights Go Down (Zero, 2025) and co-editor of Rethinking Darkness (Routledge, 2020) and Dark Skies (Routledge, 2023).
Mike Hawtin, is Head of Nature Recovery Projects, delivering landscape-scale interventions within the Conservation and Climate Change Department at the North York Moors National Park, a protected upland landscape in the north of England.
As lead Dark Skies officer, Mike led the application for North York Moors to be designated an International Dark Sky Reserve from inception and now leads a programme across the National Park to tackle light pollution through education, engagement and the delivery of lighting improvement projects.
He has contributed to discussions on forming UK Government policy on lighting through his participation in a UK Dark Skies Partnership of protected landscapes and is coordinating the formalisation of the Northern England Dark Skies Alliance to create a stronger regional voice for the protection of dark skies.
Richard Darn is a Dark Skies Consultant, Astronomer, and Activist. Richard sat on the working group that led to the designation of the Northumberland International Dark Sky Park and helped launch the Kielder Observatory.
He also co-founded the Kielder Forest Star Camp, ran a high-profile astro-tourism training project for the Animating Dark Skies Partnership called Star Tips, and began outreach astronomy in Kielder Forest in 1998.
He continues to work with the Northumberland Dark Sky Park and with the Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors national parks, being part of the team that gained international dark sky reserve status for both in 2020.
He works with tourism businesses and has appeared on BBC Sky at Night and Stargazing Live, with numerous TV and radio appearances to his credit. Aside from his dark sky work, he is an award-winning media consultant who has worked for a wide range of high-profile national clients.
Dr Kellee Caton Lee is a professor in the Faculty of Adventure, Culinary Arts, and Tourism. Working in the geohumanities, she seeks to leverage insights from moral philosophy to understand changing human-nature relationships in the Anthropocene/Capitalocene. She is particularly interested in the moral potential of experiences of enchantment. She leads the international Critical Tourism Studies network. She is also passionate about working with students and co-leads a biannual international agritourism field school to Tuscany to promote learning through sensory experiences and conviviality.
Dr Brendan Paddison is Professor of Tourism Geographies and Dean York Business School, York St John University.
As an urban geographer, Brendan's research interests include tourism and destination management, spatial justice, policy, and collaborative forms of destination governance and development. Brendan leads the Visitor Economy and Experience research group at York St John, is co-chair of the Tourism Education Futures Initiative (TEFI) and is Chair of the York Tourism Advisory Board.
He is the Editor of the Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism Education and a member of the editorial boards for the Journal of Teaching in Travel and Tourism and the e-Review of Tourism Research journal.
Dr Jen Hall is Associate Professor of Tourism and Events, York Business School, York St John University. As a cultural geographer, her work examines social and ecological justice in tourism, leisure, events, heritage and sport.
Jen is an expert in tourism governance and policy, with a focus on urban heritage, spatial justice, and regenerative tourism in natural environments. She is currently working with North York Moors National Park on a five-year research project to investigate the climate crisis and conservation through public engagement programmes.
Jen is a Fellow and Secretary of The Geographies of Leisure and Tourism Research Group at the Royal Geographical Society. She has professional experience managing cultural regeneration projects in the public sector, establishing and leading major venues, festivals, and cultural development programmes.
Background
The accelerated growth of light pollution has degraded the night sky and harms human health, wildlife and ecological systems (Foott, 2022).
In the United States of America and Europe, 90% of citizens live under light-polluted skies, with only 1% of this light considered useful (Foott, 2022). Although there has been a growing global movement to “protect the night” from light pollution, and the importance of dark-sky conservation has proliferated (DarkSky International, 2024), our knowledge of the effectiveness of these interventions is limited.
There is a lack of understanding of the social, environmental, and cultural impacts of light pollution and dark-sky conservation, with little attention paid to tourists' perceptions of dark-sky reserves.
However, raising awareness through public engagement programmes is crucial to addressing light pollution, the loss of our dark sky and its impact on protected dark-sky places. In the United Kingdom (UK), several internationally recognised protected Dark-Sky places exist where the night sky is unobstructed by light pollution. The North York Moors National Park (NYMNP) is one such place.
The NYMNP has established a dark-sky public engagement and regenerative tourism programme to raise awareness among tourism stakeholders of dark-sky conservation and environmental protection. Through research undertaken in 2024, we are now exploring how this could help York become Dark Sky Friendly.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Creative Centre, York St John University, York, United Kingdom
GBP 0.00
