ABSTRACT
The Galloway Forest Dark Sky Park (GFDSP) in southwest of Scotland is part of a growing community of International Dark Sky Places (IDSPs), areas in and for which local communities have pledged to conserve the natural darkness of the night sky by controlling levels of artificial light pollution. On a clear night in the Park, more than 7,000 stars and planets can be seen with the naked eye. This chapter attends to the interplay of starlight and darkness through a reflective account of fieldwork, conducted in and with the Dark Sky Park using handmade pinhole cameras as more-than-representational devices. Lengthy exposure times and the presence of non-human agents produce an altogether different sense of the Dark Sky Park, opening onto diverse modes of nocturnal being and becoming. Through an exploration of the creative co-composition of light, darkness and landscape, the chapter proposes the site and subject of research as a ‘contact zone’, offering thoughts on how Dark Sky Places and other landscapes might be otherwise known and engaged.
