The Bats Project: Conversation on Darkness, Bats, and Poetry

Part recital, part lecture, and part conversation, this event is an invitation to critically and creatively reflect on our relationships with darkness and bats.

We will delve into themes of dark aesthetics in the horror genre, question the notion of the monstrous, and explore how cultural interpretations of darkness might shape human behaviours toward these species. The conversation also aims to highlight the ecological significance of bats. It will consider what their decline reveals about the fragility of the environments we share. 

Event schedule: 

• Readings by artist and writer Noam Toran and poet Briony Hughes, while listening to the tunes of sound artist Ronnie Deelen 

• A short introduction to Nestor Pestana’s research titled New Dark Aesthetics: The Bats Project 

• Conversation with bat expert Stephanie Holt and poet Briony Hughes, drawing on insights from ecology, literature and cultural ecologies 

This event is part of New Dark Aesthetics: The Bats Project, a research project created and led by Nestor Pestana. The project is kindly supported by the Royal College of Art, London Borough of Richmond upon Thames and the Henry Moore Foundation. 

Moderator: Nestor Pestana 

Guests: Stephanie Holt and Dr. Briony Hughes 

Contributions by: Noam Toran and Ronnie Deelen 

Assistance: Sacchitanandi Ganpathiraju 

Event illustration: Utkarsh Pathak 

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Conversation participants: 

Nestor Pestana is a multimedia artist, tutor, and researcher in Information Experience Design at the Royal College of Art, and Cinematic and Videogame Architecture at The Bartlett, UCL. Through his research practice titled New Dark Aesthetics, Nestor collaborates with ecologists and technologists to explore themes within cultural ecologies, currently with a focus on bats and their narrative representations in popular media, such as cinema and gaming. Drawing from speculation, fiction and horror, his work aims to reclaim the dark and monstrous as a space for empathy, refuge, and transformation. His work has been recognised and awarded by the Royal College of Art, Wellcome Trust, Ars Electronica and the YouFab Global Creative Awards. 

Stephanie Holt is a biodiversity specialist and bat expert based at the Natural History Museum in London, where she serves as the UK Biodiversity Training Manager at the Angela Marmont Centre. She leads national training initiatives in species identification and public engagement, with a particular passion for bat ecology and conservation. Alongside her work at the museum, Stephanie is pursuing a DPhil in History at the University of Oxford, researching the networks of eighteenth-century naturalists and their influence on modern natural history practices. Her work bridges science, education, and history, fostering deeper public understanding of biodiversity and overlooked species. 

Briony Hughes is a poet, researcher, and lecturer at Royal Holloway, University of London, where she explores ecological entanglements, experimental poetry, and site-specific writing. She holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the same institution and is known for her innovative engagements with form and environment. Her latest poetry collection, Speculative Frequencies (Permeable Barrier, 2025), draws from nocturnal encounters with bats in Surrey Hills, blending speculative ecologies with poetic inquiry. Briony’s work has been featured in various journals and small presses, and she frequently collaborates across disciplines on eco critical, sonic, and performance led projects.