©️ Mirror Lake, Valley of the Yosemite (1872) by Eadweard Muybridge

Overburden: On Extraction And the Shape of Things to Come | A Group Exhibition at Greylight Projects, Heerlen, NL
(8 Nov - 15 Dec. 2024)

Extraction refers to the forced removal of raw materials and life forms from the earth’s surface, depths and biosphere. A process that not only has devastatingly shaped a predicament of climate crisis but also functions as a generative logic by which we understand the world. Understanding extraction as both a material reality as well as a cultural problem brings into focus the role of art and imagination in shaping what we talk about when we talk about “nature”, “progress”, or “crisis”. And what remains outside of art’s representation, just outside the frame, or is difficult to recognize within it? The exhibition approaches this concern from within the frame, from the inconspicuous idea of overburden. In mining, overburden is that which needs to be removed in order to access the ore being mined. It is material, such as rock, soil and ecosystem, that lies above an area that lends itself to economical exploitation. This way of organizing nature emphasizes the justification that was always present in the logic of extraction, and the project of modernity — a disregard for some, for the benefit of another.

The works of the participating artists (Alaa Abu Asad, Rachel Bacon, Anastasia Kubrak, Harun Morrison & Miriam Sentler) depart from different localities, from Palestine, Czechia, and Zuid-Limburg among others, as they offer contributions that interrogate the interplay between extraction, the materiality of art and the formation of visuality in relation to histories of empire, labour and knowledge underpinning our cultural imaginings.

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©️ Het Nieuwe Domein

Mining Myths | A Solo Exhibition at Museum het Nieuwe Domein Sittard, NL (13 Sept. 2024 - 5 jan. 2025)

Museum Het Nieuwe Domein pays attention to the history and culture of the Sittard-Geleen-Born region. The mining history has played an important role in the development of this region. Maurits State Mine, the largest coal mine in the Netherlands, has had a direct influence on the spatial planning of Sittard-Geleen. Entire neighborhoods were built for the employees who worked in the mine.

December 2024 will mark 50 years since the last coal was mined in the Netherlands, but the impact still lives on. This is a reason for Het Nieuwe Domein to pay attention to this with a modest solo presentation by artist Miriam Sentler. The exhibition Mining Myths takes its title from a work by artist Miriam Sentler from 2022. The work was purchased by the museum in 2023, together with her audio installation The Forest Underground (2022). These and other works of the artist will be on view until the 5th of january in the museum at the Kapittelstraat.

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©️LIAF, Lofoten International Art Festival 2024

Metode #3 Currents: Regenerating Pasts for the Not Yet | A Publication in Metode Journal in collaboration with ROM for Kunst og Arkitektur Oslo and Lofoten International Art Festival, Svolvær, Lofoten, NO (June – Dec. 2024)

I am pleased to announce that I have been selected as one of the participants of the Currents project. Currents is a collaboration project between Metode and Lofoten International Art Festival (LIAF)2024. LIAF is the longest-running art biennial in Scandinavia, presenting works by local and international artists in a location-conscious context. This year's festival, its 18th edition, is curated by Kjersti Solbakken.

The online journal platform Metode publishes essays in the fields of art and architecture. The essays are developed through experimental, intellectual cocreation, and collaborative methods. The journal’s open, in-depth peer review method aims to offer theorists and practitioners a discursive platform for generating original and compelling critical thinking on art, architecture, design, and aesthetics that challenge conventional academic publication formats and disseminations. We invite artists, designers, and architects to unite with scholars from the humanities to explore creative and risky ways of assembling knowledge through words and works.

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Kunsthalle Wilhelmshaven. ©️ Photo: Edward Greiner

-162°C, 450 kg/m³ Fossil Energy, Fragile Futures | A Group Exhibition at Kunsthalle Wilhelmshaven, DE, curated by Lena Reisner (March 8th – June 23rd 2024)

The first terminal for importing liquefied natural gas (LNG) went into operation in Wilhelmshaven in December 2022. For overseas transport, the fossil gas is cooled to −162 °C in a complex process and compressed to around 450 kg/m³. In the region, the hope for new economic resources through the expansion of industrial infrastructure contrasts with the threat to the environment caused by the discharge of toxic waste into the sea.

The complex relationship between energy production, environmental protection and social justice is the focus of the exhibition. Multimedia artistic positions address the use of natural gas, oil and coal in various regions of the world and show forms of resistance to the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructures. The mining of raw materials such as uranium and lithium, which is required for batteries and is playing an increasingly important role in the “energy transition”, is also being considered.

Artists: Ana Alenso, Ayọ̀ Akínwándé, Andrew Castrucci, Marjolijn Dijkman, Sonja Hornung & Daniele Tognozzi, Susanne Kriemann, Bram Kuypers, Rachel O’Reilly, Oliver Ressler, Miriam Sentler and others.

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Floating Fathers in Your Water Our Water Exhibition, Freiburg im Breisgau, DE.
©️ Photo: DELPHI

Your Water Our Water | A Group Exhibition at DELPHI Art Space, Freiburg im Breisgau, DE, Art Quarter Budapest, HU & U10 Art Space Belgrade, RS (27.04 - 28.12.2024)

Deep Time Agency has been selected as one of the participating artists in the Your Water Our Water exhibition cycle, taking place throughout 2024 in three art spaces along the Donau river.

As a mighty body of water, the Danube flows through large parts of Europe. On its way from its source in the Black Forest to its mouth in the Black Sea, it crosses numerous borders. This makes it a connecting element between diverse national identities and breaks up the rigid order of the mainland (...) The title of the traveling exhibition “YOUR WATER OUR WATER” alludes to the interconnectedness of all water systems and the adjoining cultural spaces. It signifies a clear perspective on the overt and covert relationships and dependencies among various local actors in the Danube region. The Danube has always been a canvas for artistic explorations that are not the least based on the inspirational power of the element of water. Every country it flows through has its own myths and stories.

As part of the trinational project, a traveling exhibition is being created that connects three young art spaces in Germany, Hungary, and Serbia along the Danube. After its opening at DELPHI_space in Freiburg on April 27, 2024, the exhibition will move to the cultural center aqb Budapest and then to U10 Belgrade. (...) In addition to painting, photography, video art, installations and performances, the exhibition includes a diverse program with film screenings, workshops and lectures.

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©️ Petrocultures 2024

Tales of the Offshore Oil City | A Panel Presentation at the Petrocultures Conference 2024, Los Angeles, USA, (May 15-18th 2024)

This year’s host city of the biennial Petrocultures Conference is Los Angeles. Before it became a media and entertainment capital of the world, Los Angeles was an oil town, with the spectacle of derricks occupying many of its treasured beaches. Over the course of the 20th century, LA evolved into a quintessential petro-city, famous for its endless freeways, traffic jams, smog, and consumer culture–and less famous for refineries, pipelines, pumpjacks, and container ships that are key features of the land- and waterscape.

The panel participants are affiliated with the multidisciplinary research project Translatability of Oil: Critical Petro-Aesthetics at Work (TOIL) at the University of Oslo.

©️ Gaada Shetland, UK

Brigði Island | A Commission at Gaada, Isle of Burra, Shetland, UK (Dec 8th – March 22nd 2024)

Brigði Island is the most recent artist commission through an ongoing partnership between Gaada (Burra, UK) and Pamflett (Bergen, NO). Together the two organisations have been working to facilitate workshops and exchanges with visual artists from both Shetland and Norway, aiming to create a “bridge” between these two coastal communities.

The brigði is a sea monster, believed to be closely related to the basking shark, an animal hunted almost to its extinction by the early oil industry and small island communities before its protection in Scottish waters in 1994. The project starts from the various linguistic definitions of the name of the oil-producing animal. Brigði translates to “basking shark” (Shetland dialect), "right to reclaim"/ "change" (Old Norse) and “bridge" (Nynorsk) and researches the meaning of the basking shark as a living point of connection between Bergen in Norway and Shetland in the UK.

In the exhibition outside the Toogs Artist Workshop, the dorsal fin of the shark is flying above the building, establishing Shetland as a “shark island.” By acquiring the Brigði Gazette in the print workshop, the visitor can go on a Shark Trail, visiting places around the coast of the island where the sea-monster was sighted. The riso-printed artist publication, especially developed for this exhibition, collects sightings of the brigði around Shetland in the last 200 years, using old newspaper articles from the Shetland Museum & Archives as a starting point. It takes the reader on a journey through the eyes of Shetland fishermen, describing awe-inducing, frightening and sometimes comical experiences made on sea.

Read more here

Press image Petromelancholia, BRUTUS Rotterdam, NL

Petromelancholia | A Group Exhibition at BRUTUS Rotterdam, NL, curated by Alexander Klose (September 1st - November 19th 2023)

Petromelancholia examines the enormous consequences of a life beyond oil, the magnitude of which many do not yet realize. Unlike the many exhibitions that sing about doom scenarios or kick in the open doors of the climate crisis, Petromelancholia reflects on the legacy of the oil age and the new meaning that this past will irrevocably acquire. What has oil brought us, materially and especially culturally, and what might disappear or change? Such a complex phenomenon only comes into the limelight if there is room for different perspectives. Art is a master discipline when it comes to anticipating and navigating change. That is why Petromelancholia, curated by Alexander Klose (research collective Beauty of Oil) brings together 24 contemporary artists from different cultural backgrounds and generations.

With works by: Yuri Ancarani (ITA), Rowan van As (NLD), Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck (VEN/DEU), Diann Bauer (USA), Uwe Belz (DEU), Vanessa Billy (CHE), Kevin van Braak & Ipeh Nur (NLD/IDN), Imani Jacqueline Brown (USA), Andrew Castrucci (USA), Chto Delat (RUS), Timo Demollin (NLD), Tanja Engelberts (NLD), Christoph Girardet (DEU), Rumiko Hagiwara (JPN/NLD), Bernhard Hopfengärtner (DEU), Aaditi Joshi (IND), Leonhard Müllner & Robin Klengel (AUT), Hugo Niebeling (DEU), Monira Al Qadiri (KWT), Alain Resnais (FRA), Konstantin Schimanowski (RUS/DEU), Miriam Sentler (DEU), Sanaz Sohrabi (IRN/CAN), Johannes Steendam (NLD), Gunhild Vatn (NOR), Jan Eric Visser (NLD), Rachel Youn (USA), Marina Zurkow (USA).

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© Balatorium 2023

Balatorium | An Artist Talk at Balatorium Ecological Week, curated by Anna Tudos, Lake Balaton, HU (27th of August, 2023)

BALATORIUM is an ecological and cultural program series and a science-communication project within the framework of Veszprém-Balaton 2023 - European Capital of Culture. The aim of the project is to support cultural, artistic and educational productions reflecting on the most important ecological challenges of Lake Balaton and its region, along with promoting a broader discourse on the topic.

BALATORIUM presents the main ecological challenges and processes related to Lake Balaton and its region, along with the key concepts that help to understand them, through unique cultural programmes and relevant content that are specifically reflective of the region, widely accessible and experiential, in the form of performative landscape tours, interactive public actions, exhibitions, talks, sound plays and artist-in-residence programmes. In addition, interviews, short background studies, text and video entries, infographics and toolkits are used as a result of peer research in order to raise awareness of the vulnerability of the Balaton region as an ecosystem and to promote a significant shift in public perception.

Gods of the Anthropocene recording day in Berlin-Biesdorf, july 2023. Photo: DTA

Gods of the Anthropocene | A New work by Deep Time Agency, funded by Mondriaan Fonds & BESD-II Program (July - December 2023)

Last week, Deep Time Agency had its first field-recording day for Gods of the Anthropocene (2023), a new project forming a continuation of the previous work Ancestors Rising (2022). In both works, we focus on the find of 10.000-year-old antler headdresses in industrial or modern landscapes in Germany. Both works reactivate the prehistoric artifacts through site-specific interventions on their exact finding locations.
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The new work focusses on the find of these objects in a newly-build modern housing environment in Berlin. The original antler headdress was found on the Westbank of the Wuhle river in Berlin in 1953, before the housing areas Marzahn, Biesdorf, and Hellersdorf were built. Starting from the function of the antlers during religious ceremonies, where they were used as a tool to contact the worshipped deities, DTA adapted the object in these urban environments as a communication device to talk to inhabitants about climate change. Using a reproduction of the 10.000-year-old antler headdress found in Berlin in combination with a pair of condenser microphones, we documented the journey through the modern neighborhood in which the artifacts were found, asking inhabitants how weather changes influences their life and how they see their own role as “Gods of the Anthropocene” in the climate crisis.

Learn more about DTA here

Sketch Fossil Fuel Mnemosyne in Textielmuseum, 2023 © Patty van der Elshout

Secrets of Making #3 | A Group Exhibition at Textielmuseum Tilburg, NL (July 1st 2023 - May 2024)

The whole making process of Fossil Fuel Mnemosyne (2022) is now installed in the Secrets of Making exhibition at Textielmuseum Tilburg. In ‘Secrets of making #3’, delve into the minds of the makers of the TextielLab, the professional workplace of the Textielmuseum. During the familiy-oriented exhibition, the visitor can discover the many routes that artists and designers take to arrive at their end result. The exhibition showcases the drawing, the tapestry and the documentation made in Norway and Scotland during the artistic research period of the work.

The exhibition includes works by Sangmin-Oh, Sigrid Calon, Brian Anderson, Sampat Studio (Marcos Kueh and Isabelle Nair-Lacheta), Miriam Sentler, Sandra Keja Planken, Jojo Shone & Leonie Burkhardt. It is open until the 26th of may 2024.

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Production Fossil Fuel Mnemosyne series, 2022 © Patty van der Elshout

Mining Myths | A New Work Developed at TextielLab: The Professional Workplace of the Textielmuseum Tilburg, NL - Supported by BRUTUS Rotterdam & Stichting Stokroos (July - August 2023)

For the upcoming exhibition Petromelancholia at BRUTUS Rotterdam, I am currently developing the second tapestry in the Fossil Fuel Mnemosyne Series: titled Mining Myths. This new work, funded by BRUTUS and Stichting Stokroos, will form a diptych with Fossil Fuel Mnemosyne: Oil & Myth (2022), in which I explored the relationships between oil and myth in the North Sea. The new tapestry incorporates various implications of coal and myth in the underworld of Limburg, being a border-region of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany. The research for this second tapestry took place during a residency in Genk, one of the largest coal mining towns in Belgium. Together, the Fossil Fuel Mnemosyne tapestries will function as a playful map, poetically and symbolically revealing the history and impact of the fossil fuel industry to a large and diverse audience.

The TextielLab is the professional working place of the Textielmuseum. It distinguishes itself as a one-of-a-kind knowledge centre for textile development where professionals are involved in carrying out extraordinary, customised projects.

The Mythical Zone in the harbour area of Amsterdam, 2023.

The Mythical Zone | A Commission for Oase van Verwondering exhibition, Ruigoord, Amsterdam, NL (opening June 23th 2023)

In De Mythische Zone (2023), the public is invited to take part in an audio walk around the edges of the former island of Ruigoord. The work in the harbour area of Amsterdam treats the area as a place for stranded inventions, a zone where time stands still and where public reflection on the adaptability of the ever-changing landscape is possible. The visitors are invited to enter six mythical audio zones during the walk where the boundaries between mythology and technology are explored. Here, they learn about different mythical interventions that all characterise the history of the landscape. Together, the six stories tell about the partly failed future visions of the petrochemical industry, the ecological changes of the landscape, the overlap of church ideologies and activist interventions and the stories of seafarers, duck-catchers, and dike builders who all once lived in this place.

The Mythical Zone is a project commissioned by curator Imke Ruigrok (director Re-NATURE Festival) and Stichting 100 years Ruigoord. It will premiere during Oase van Verwondering, a group exhibition opening on the 23nd of june 2023 in Ruigoord. With (a.o.) Gijs Frieling, Atelier van Lieshout, Ambassade van de Noordzee, Wafae Ahalouch, Muge Yilmaz, Annabelle Binnerts, Miriam Sentler, Ruchama Noorda, Ambassade van de Noordzee, Inge Meijer, Femmy Otten and Suzette Bousema.

Download the walk here

Visits to different parts of the Shetlands, may 2023

Brigði | A Residency & Workshop with Pamflett Bergen at Gaada, Isle of Burra, Shetland, UK (May 20-27th 2023)

In may 2023, I will conduct a residency at Gaada on the Shetlands Islands, organising a workshop and collaboration day with local Shetland artists and researching the landscape for the upcoming project Brigdi (2023-2024). This visit will function as the first phase of a collaboration between Gaada Shetland (UK), Pamflett Bergen (NO) and myself.

Brigði, meaning “basking shark” (Shetland dialect), "right to reclaim"/ "change" (Old Norse) and “Bridge" (Nynorsk), researches the meaning of the basking shark as a living point of connection between Bergen (NO) and the Shetlands (UK), focusing on the meaning and use of the animal in the different coastal areas where it surfaces. My research into the history of oil- and energy production in small-scale island communities continues with Brigði, forming a continuation of Cairban - A Contemporary Shark Hunt (2021).
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Gaada is an artist-led organisation based in Burra Isle, Shetland. They believe art is for all and work with communities in Shetland to develop meaningful and critical art activities. Their work centres around improving access to creative development through Gaada’s well-equipped visual art workshop and specialist support from its experienced artists. From their workshop they run an ambitious visual arts programme which includes exhibitions, printmaking workshops, creating editions, and developing local resources.

More information about Gaada
More information about Pamflett

Logo Mondriaan fund. © Mondriaanfonds, NL

Practice generously supported by the Artist Basic Grant of Mondriaan Fund from 2023 until 2027 (April 4th 2023)

Between 2023 and 2027, my practice is generously supported by the Artist Basic Grant (FKA Stipendium for Established Artists) of the Mondriaan Fund (Mondriaanfonds).

Artist Basic grants are for visual artists from the Netherlands, helping them in the making of new work and the further development of their professional practice. The Mondriaan Fund offers Artist Basic grants to stimulate the development of visual artists’ oeuvres, their cultural entrepreneurship and their visibility, supporting the creation of work that can make a valuable contribution to contemporary visual art in the Netherlands and/or the Caribbean part of the Kingdom. During the assessment of the applications, the advisory committee ranks the distinctiveness of the artistic vision of the applicant, next to the quality, visibility, and acknowledgement of the work in the national and international art world.

More information about the grant

Miriam in the studio with the first test prints of Planktos Rising. © Miriam Sentler

Planktos Rising | A Book Launch at Bergen Art Book Fair, Bergen Kunsthall, NO (April 15th 2023, 14.00h)

The children book Planktos Rising recounts the journey of a plankton named Planktos who meets many inhabitants of the North Sea. Through their conversations, he learns about a mythical material of great influence on their environment: oil. Using colorful and tactile imagery, the book introduces children to the strange relationships between mythology and fossil fuel, making up the basis for universal thinking that is needed to discuss the topic of the climate crisis.

The limited, riso-printed edition of this children’s book will be on sale for the first time at Bergen Art Book Fair. During the round table talk on Saturday the 15th of april at 14.00, Miriam and Alix will talk about the elaborate making process of the book. The publication is inspired by a tapestry, made by Miriam Sentler and woven at the Textielmuseum Tilburg. The research of the project took place during two residencies in oil production landscapes: one at Knockvologan Studies in the Inner Hebrides in Scotland, UK and the other at the United Sardine Factory (USF) in Bergen, NO.

Read more about the BABF Program here

workshop in the ENCI marl quarry, 2022. © Deep Time Agency

Marl Matters | Guest Teaching about the ENCI Marl Quarry at Institute of Fine Arts Maastricht, NL (March 9-10 2023)

During the workshop with students of the Institute of Fine Arts Maastricht, we (visual artists Miriam Sentler and Elena Khurtova) want to use archival research, making and walking as methods of visually experiencing the depth and different material layers of which the ENCI marl quarry is composed. Together with the students, we will explore the historical exploitations of the landscape and the different materials harvested from the site throughout centuries.

The ENCI area has been mined for 2500 years - and every century was characterised by different techniques, applications and reasons for using the marl. During the workshop, Miriam will focus on the historical purposes of the landscape, placing our contemporary, industrial dealings with it into a transhistorical perspective, while Elena will research different sensorial aspects and techniques of working with marl which she will investigate further with the students during a workshop in the quarry. How do the different (industrial) techniques used to form, change and apply the marl can be translated through acts of care? and how can we care for the marl and the newly-formed nature in the redevelopment phase of the closed cement quarry in the present time?

Read more about the project Artistic Research in Situ

The Whale Hall. Adnan Icagic © Universitetsmuseet i Bergen

Cairban: A Contemporary Shark Hunt | A Performance at Hvalsalen, Universitetsmuseet Naturhistorie Bergen, NO (January 14th 2023)

Cairban: A Contemporary Shark Hunt is a performance by visual artist Miriam Sentler (NL/DE) and environmental humanities researcher Sadie Hale (NO/UK). The work is rooted in a three-day sea voyage on the North Atlantic, in which the duo set out in search of the oil-producing basking shark. Cairban comments on modern surveillance technologies used in wildlife spotting, now a practice fueling the tourism industry of the Scottish Hebrides instead of the oil industry. This advanced modern technology is contrasted with the crude early methods described in historical reports of Hebridean shark hunters and the crew's own non-encounter, emphasizing how the 'wild' and mythical still evades capture today.

On Saturday the 14th of January, Sadie and Miriam will give a performance in the whale hall, consisting of reading a travelogue in the middle of a so-called “shark wheel”. The performance highlights the unrealistic expectations of the crew and reflects on the changing of the human relationship to the shark throughout time.

Duration: 20 minutes
Language: English

More information & tickets

© GRIP 2022

GRIP: Global Research Program on Inequality - Speculative Urban Futures | A Workshop at Errant Bodies Studio, Berlin, DE (January 18-19 2023)

The project Speculative Urban Futures is organizing a two-day workshop in Berlin 18-19 January 2023. Participants are invited to join in ‘speculations’ about potential urban futures, in the form of cross-disciplinary open-ended discussion and creation.
The Global Research Programme on Inequality (GRIP) is a radically interdisciplinary research programme that views inequality as both a fundamental challenge to human well-being and as an impediment to achieving the ambitions of the 2030 Agenda. GRIP was established in 2019 as a collaboration between the University of Bergen (UiB) and the International Science Council (ISC) to foster co-designed processes of knowledge creation to understand the multiple dimensions of rising inequalities. The workshop is organised by Dr. Brandon LaBelle and Dr. Bjørn Enge Berthelsen.

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Performance (Bringing) The Forest Underground, C-Mine Genk (BE)
© Miriam Sentler

An Afternoon filled with Presentations by Jester Artists | A Presentation at Jester - C Mine Genk, BE (December 11th 2022)

On the 11th of December, we come together for the finissage of Marie Zolamian’s exhibition, and the end of a major chapter of our organisation. At the end of 2022, the programme initiated still under two organisations, FLACC and CIAP, comes to an end. We are grateful for the last years and for the experiences and encounters they brought. We are looking forward to starting 2023 with new ideas, energy, and humour – in the style of Jester.

Some of our artists will share elements of their research or project on this special day. Alongside, we will hold a goodbye drink with some departing colleagues. Luuk Nouwen worked for ten years as artistic director at FLACC and the last year as senior supervisor artistic projects at Jester. Tine Deboelpaep worked for the past years as an artistic employee at CIAP and Jester. Lisa Costantini worked for two years at FLACC and Jester in administration and for the ceramics studio.

Register here

Terrace field, Yunnan China. © Wikimedia commons.

Conversations: Pasts, Presents, and Futures of the Environmental Humanities | A Presentation at NICA, Netherlands Institute for Cultural Analysis (November 29th 2022)

The NICA PhD Council invites all NICA members and interested members of the public to an evening of discussion on the past, present and futures of the Environmental Humanities. Come join us in taking stock of the state of the Environmental Humanities in the Netherlands and beyond, and addressing pertinent questions with leading scholars from a range of disciplines during an engaging and inspiring evening with discussions, drinks, and snacks. Confirmed speakers: Dr. Jeff Diamanti (Assistant Professor of Environmental Humanities - Cultural Analysis & Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam), Patricia Pisters (Professor of film at the Department of Media Studies of the University of Amsterdam), Colin Sterling (Assistant Professor of Memory and Museums at the University of Amsterdam), Miriam Sentler (visual artist and artistic researcher based in the Netherlands).

Register here

Audio recordings on the heath of Genk, BE. © Miriam Sentler

Exploring the Underground Forest with Miriam Sentler and Kristof Reulens | An Interview with Alicja Melzacka - curator of Jester Genk (BE) (October 27th 2022)

Dutch artist Miriam Sentler is one of the residents at Jester in 2022. In conversation with Kristof Reulens, the coordinator for arts and heritage at the City of Genk, and Jester’s curator Alicja Melzacka, she is sharing her research of the new work The Forest Underground (2022-) and looking back at her three-week-long stay at the Emile van Dorenmuseum.

The Forest Underground starts from the sounds of the “underground forest” of the coal mines of Limburg and is developed in the context of Genk, one of the largest coal towns in Belgium. In the mining industry, trees, plants and animals were treated as industrial resources. They were utilized in order to find coal, a fossil fuel that itself originated from ancient ecosystems and plant remains. However, that these natural entities also had material agency was for the miners of the last century self-evident. In the mines, the voices of birds, crickets and trees were heard on a daily basis, accompanying the hard work of the miners.

Read the interview here

Overview solo presentation at Looiersgracht 60, Amsterdam. © LNDW Studio

Archive Event VI: The Chase - Miriam Sentler | A Solo Exhibition & Performance at Looiersgracht 60, Amsterdam, NL (October 29-31 2022)

For the sixth edition of the Archive Series, Looiersgracht 60 presents ‘The Chase’, a unique installation by visual artist and artistic researcher Miriam Sentler. Accompanying the installation will be a public program with Sentler’s frequent collaborators, environmental humanities researcher Sadie Hale, and composer Drake Stoughton. Sentler and Hale will perform Cairban: A Contemporary Shark Hunt followed by a panel discussion between Sentler and Stoughton, moderated by Alicja Melzacka, curator of Jester, an exhibition space established on a former coal mine in Genk, BE.

‘The Chase’ brings together three of Sentler’s projects surrounding artistic methods of archiving endangered species in landscapes exploited for fossil fuel extraction. Considering the act of the ‘chase’, Sentler does not strive to capture her subjects, but rather focuses on the reach towards engagement with fleeting sources. Methods such as translating the sounds of endangered birds into sheet music or following the legendary basking shark as dual industrial resource and sea-monster are presented in the installation as methods to engage with the changes of precarious landscapes. Sentler explores these on-going research projects through the performance, discussion and installations and questions their methodologies as (im)possible archival instruments of the chase.

The performance and panel talk will take place on October 29 from 16:00 - 18:00, and will be followed by drinks. The installation will be open for viewing on Oct 29 and 30 from 12:00-20:00. Admission is free, but there are limited seats available so please RSVP for the public programme by emailing info@looiersgracht60.org

Ancestors Rising film still (2022) © Deep Time Agency

GeSCHICHTEN Rheinisches Revier | A Film Screening of Ancestors Rising at Conference LVR Landesmuseum Bonn, DE (October 24-25 2022)

For centuries, the region between Cologne, Aachen, Mönchengladbach and Zülpich (DE) has been characterized by opencast lignite mining. The multifaceted change that accompanies this not only changes the cultural landscape through industrialization and resettlement, but also influences everyday life, working environments and social structures as well as politics and social discourses. The political decision to accelerate the phase-out of coal mining and power generation, as well as the current global political situation, have an existential impact on the people of the region in their current lives and plans for the future.

The LVR Landesmuseum cordially invites artists, scientists and other interested parties to explore, illuminate and shape the cultural heritage of the Rheinisches Revier during the conference GeSCHICHTEN - Rheinisches Revier. On October 24th and 25th, 2022 we will meet in the Brauweiler Abbey in Pulheim to discuss cultural possibilities in structural change. During this conference, Deep Time Agency will screen Ancestors Rising (2022) and give a public panel talk to the audience.

More info and tickets

Descent into the Future (2020) © Deep Time Agency

Gallery 3 By Deep Time Agency | A Solo Exhibition at Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam (October 6-22 2022)

Deep Time Agency proudly presents its first solo exhibition at Het Nieuwe Instituut.
A multi-year, artistic research initiative, the agency re-contextualises archaeological and paleontological objects in (post-)industrial landscapes, in collaboration with local residents, stakeholders and institutions. The result is a series of case studies that highlights changing landscapes and found objects and brings them together in an overarching artistic project. The first four parts, Descent into the Future (2020), Concrete Reef (2022), Ancestors Rising (2022) and Swamp Palace (2022), can now be seen in Gallery 3 of the Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam.

Deep Time Agency's projects spring from the crossroads of art, design, archaeology and cultural heritage. The agency members view its interdisciplinary work as exercises in deep-time thinking, trying to break through the short-term thinking that stands at the origin of the climate crisis. Deep Time Agency is characterised by a strong methodical approach. By means of temporary interventions and art in public space, it focuses on archaeological objects that have been found in various (post-)industrial landscapes, collaborating with scientists, experts and local residents. Deep Time Agency believes that mining areas deserve more attention, especially in a time characterised by the awareness of the finiteness of fossil fuels and other industrial resources.

More info and tickets

Archival Photo Mines Waterschei Genk, BE © Mine Depot Genk

The Forest Underground - A New Project funded by O&O Grant - CBK Rotterdam | in collaboration with Jester & Emile van Dorenmuseum Genk (24 Aug. - 31 Dec 2022)

The Forest Underground (2022-2023) researches the acoustic agency of birds, trees, and insects in the Limburgian coal mines, highlighting how the voices of pinewood, canaries, and crickets were utilized by the mining industry deep underground. Exemplary, the cracking of wood was used to signal the collapse of the tunnels to the workers, thus bearing a strong form of material agency. This is an alteration of the well-known canary in the coal mine, showing how the agency of sentinel species spanned from animals to plants and trees. The project focuses on the concept of rebirth, based on the emergence of the post-industrial forest of Genk after the mining industry. Parts of Genks forest were planted to find fitting wood for the support of mine galleries, a harsh contrast to the landscape highlighted in Chase (2020), in which trees disappeared because of the lignite industry.

The Forest Underground is conducted in collaboration with composer Drake Stoughton (US/NL 1995). Researching Genk´s mining and landscape painting history in collaboration with Jester and Emile van Dorenmuseum, the work will form a diptych to our earlier work, questioning the ecological and historical legacy of the fossil fuel industry in the border region of Limburg.

Ancestors Rising Film Still, 2022 © Deep Time Agency

Ancestors Rising - Day of the Archeology | A Film Screening at Aussenstelle Titz, LVR LandesMuseum Bonn, DE (20th Aug. - 24/25 Oct. )

Deep Time Agency´s new film Ancestors Rising (2022) will premiere at the Day of the Archeology 2022. During this event, the cultural legacy of the RWE lignite industry will be discussed, taking archeological finds from the excavation sites as starting points and granting them a functional role in the repurposing process of the industrial landscape.

Ancestors Rising was a site-specific intervention at the former Garzweiler lignite mine in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. In 1987, archaeologists made a unique discovery in the middle of the Garzweiler mine when they found two 10.000-year-old antler frontlets. These rare objects were most likely part of a shamanic garb, worn during ceremonies in the Stone Age. Ancestors Rising aims to revisit this point of departure in order to rethink the role of humans in this industrial environment and to envision ways to reconnect with the intrinsic nature of the land. The work reactivated the antler artefacts through temporarily bringing them back to their exact find place, nowadays located in the air.

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Fossil Fuel Mnemosyne - Climate of Concern 2022. © RADIUS CCA / photo: Gunnar Meier. Work on right: Julian Charriere, Future Fossil Spaces, 2017

Fossil Fuel Mnemosyne at CLIMATE OF CONCERN | A Group Exhibition at RADIUS, Centre for Contemporary Art & Ecology, Delft (09 July - 11 Sept. 2022)

The tapestry Fossil Fuel Mnemosyne (2021-2022), produced together with the TextileLab in Tilburg, will be on show at the CLIMATE OF CONCERN exhibition at Radius CCA in Delft. CLIMATE OF CONCERN is the second exhibition of the Underland year program, examining the current over-indebtedness to the fossil fuel industry and mineral extractivism through the work of nine artists: Bianca Bondi, Julian Charrière, Amalie Jakobsen, Regina de Miguel, Agnieszka Polska, Lisa Rave, Oliver Ressler, Miriam Sentler and Sam Smith.

In 1991, Shell released the documentary Climate of Concern, which displayed the potentially catastrophic consequences of climate change: increasing drought, extreme weather, floods, crop failures, disappearing islands, and migration. Yet Shell, alongside other petrochemical companies, continues to profit from fossil fuel extraction, actively contributing to climate change. Nowadays, we have become intertwined with fossil memory so much so that there is no single aspect in our lives that is not somehow impacted by the (ab)use of fossil fuels: from the buildings we inhabit, the pavement they stand on, and the cars that pass them by, to the clothes we wear or the wrapping of our food.

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Swamp Palace I at Nieuwe Uitzichten Exhibition - Odapark, Venray, NL.
© Deep Time Agency

Swamp Palace at Nieuwe Uitzichten | A Group Exhibition at Odapark, Venray (31 July - 23 Oct. 2022)

Deep Time Agency´s new work Swamp Palace (2022) investigates the demand for greenery in Tegelen, a village near Venlo that is best known for the ceramic industry. In the project we refer to the work of the paleoanthropologist Eugene Dubois (1858-1940), who conducted ecological experiments in the area. He wanted to establish a flourishing primeval landscape here, growing fossilised seeds that he found in the industrial clay pits of Tegelen. Dubois was critical of the developing industry in his time and looked for a method to recultivate the damaged land. Nowadays, urban developers and designers seem to express a similar dissatisfaction with the lack of nature in Tegelen and surroundings. Responding to this, we resurrect Dubois experiment one hundred years later, once again attempting to explore the primeval landscape of Tegelen.

The water basin in the exhibition space forms a diptych with a sculpture, which can be seen from September onwards in the center of Tegelen. In the exhibition space, Dubois´ waterplants play a leading role; in Tegelen. the land-based plants. Swamp Palace shows an apocalyptic image: referring to the recent floods of July 2021, but also to the nickname that the town hall was given when it was built: Swamp Palace. Since the monumental building was erected on a swampy stretch of land, the local residents thought that the monumental building would soon sink into the swamp.

Artists: Emy Bensdorp, Deep Time Agency, Biën Kamphuis & Rutger Vos, Brecht Koelman, Chaim van Luit, Lobke Meekes, Ingeborg Meulendijks & Rick van der Linden, Christian Odzuck, Judith Reijnders, Judith Schils, Fabian Seibert, Mona Steinhäußer

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Examining tropical vegetation on the estate of Eugene Dubois. Still Swamp Palace
- Nieuwe Uitzichten: Museum Bommel van Dam & Odapark. © Doerak film

Swamp Palace at Nieuwe Uitzichten | A Commissioned Work in Public Space in Tegelen - Museum Bommel van Dam & Odapark Venray (9 Sept. 2022 - 7 Oct. 2022)

Museum van Bommel van Dam and Odapark in Venray have jointly started Nieuwe Uitzichten. Supported by the North Limburg Culture Region, nine artists and designers from the Euregion around North Limburg are developing a project within this exhibition that contributes to the greening of our living environment. Each artist focuses on a specific location. In these nine places, efforts are being made towards a green intervention in the public space.

Deep Time Agency´s project proposal for Nieuwe Uitzichten focuses on the environment of Tegelen. At the start of construction of Tegelen´s town hall, there was a lot of discussion about the choice of location. Many thought that the ground in this place would be too swampy, not suitable for such a building. The town hall was therefore nicknamed the 'Swamp Palace'. Our research takes this historical reference a starting point for thinking about the ecological future of the city. The plan is to actually transform the town hall into a swamp palace. For this imaginative gesture, we are inspired by the Ice Age jungle of Tegelen, which renowned paleoanthropologist Eugène Dubois (1858-1940) reconstructed 100 years ago at Landgoed de Bedelaar near Tegelen. Dubois designed an exotic (water) landscape on his estate, based on millions of years old fossilised seeds from the former Tegelen clay quarries. Following Dubois, we are undertaking a similar experiment, but in the center of Tegelen. The premise here is that the imagination, which is necessary to imagine the growth of a primeval jungle in Tegelen, undermines the short-term thinking that underpins the curren climate crisis.

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Concrete Reef at Nieuw Dakota, 2022. © Deep Time Agency

Concrete Reef | A Commissioned Work for Still Waters Run Deep Exhibition - Nieuw Dakota Amsterdam (26 june - 27 aug. 2022)

Nieuw Dakota presents the exhibition Still Waters Run Deep, an exhibition in which 7 artists respond to today's climate issues, curated by Marlies Augustijn. Water is vital to life on planet Earth. It covers much of the Earth’s surface in oceans, rivers, lakes and seas, and appears as groundwater, glaciers and clouds. It is captured in political and cultural phenomena, such as drinking and wastewater systems, aquariums and swimming pools. Crucially, water also flows through us to hydrate and fuel cells, organs and tissue and we shed it as tears. The exhibition explores how the fundamental connection between humanity and nature, water in particular, can take on a more central role in our actions.

Three artists, Hannah Rowan, Deep Time Agency (Miriam Sentler & Wouter Osterholt) and Kasia Molga, will present new work in the exhibition. The production of the new work is generously supported by the Mondriaan Fonds and the Stichting Niemeijer Fonds.

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Ij River, Port of Amsterdam. © FieldARTS

Transitional Water/ FieldARTS | A Residency at the Estuaries of the IJ River, Port of Amsterdam, North-Sea (4 - 8 july 2022)

FieldARTS is an annual residency designed for emerging scholars and artists engaged in environmental and artistic research. The intensive week-long program allows for collaborative knowledge creation in dialogue with experts both on and in the field. During the residency, participants are invited to attend extended field trips, lectures by key theorists in the field of environmental humanities, collaborative workshops, and public-facing roundtable discussions.

Within the FIELDarts residency, Sentler plans to start the second chapter of Fossil Fuel Mnemosyne (2021-ongoing), focusing on the Amsterdam Harbour as the biggest petrol port in the world. Fossil Fuel Mnemosyne highlights the mythical and cultural implications of oil extraction in changing maritime landscapes as a long-term artistic research project. By conducting residencies, Miriam mapped the historical, mythical, and ecological implications of the oil industry in the Hebrides and off the coast of Bergen and Stavanger, resulting in the first chapter of the project.

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Audio recordings at Winterslag and Waterschei, Genk, BE © Miriam Sentler

The Chase | A Residency at Jester (CIAP/FLACC) & Emile van Doren Museum, Genk, BE (April/ June 2022)

In April and June 2022 I am staying at Jester (formerly: CIAP/FLACC) and the Emile van Dorenmuseum to record the sounds of the post-industrial forests of Genk, growing on the terrils of Waterschei and Winterslag (artificial hills made out of ‘waste’ soil resulting from the excavation for coal). The recordings will form the bases for the Chase II, developed together with Jester Genk (formerly CIAP/FLACC).

The new work will form the second part of The Chase (2020), researching the post-industrial forest which developed after the closing of the coal mines and contrasting the sound recordings in the endangered Hambacher Forst in North-Rhine Westphalia, DE.

Filming day Ancestors Rising, Garzweiler, North-Rhine Westphalia, DE
© Deep Time Agency

Ancestors Rising | A Presentation and Film Screening at LVR Kulturkonferenz Brauweiler, DE (1 June 2022)

On the 1st of June, Deep Time Agency presents Ancestors Rising (2022) for the first time at the LVR Kulturkonferenz in Brauweiler (DE). Ancestors Rising is a new work in the context of the Garzweiler lignite pit in North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany. With the help of KIWI aerial shots and camera man Casper Brink, we flew a replica of the Antler Headdress of Bedburg-Königshoven back to its exact finding location in the pit. Since all surrounding earth was excavated, the antler headdress was relocated in the air. The antler headdress was used by shamans 10.000 years ago, who placed them on their heads during ceremonies to ask the nature gods for good crops and hunting conditions. Ancestors Rising is the second work and case study of Deep Time Agency and will form a diptych with our first work Descent into the Future (2020).

Tapestry Fossil Fuel Mnemosyne at Art Rotterdam 2022. © Aad Hoogendoorn

Fossil Fuel Mnemosyne | A Group Exhibition at Prospects - Art Rotterdam 2022 (19 - 22 May 2022)

The tapestry Fossil Fuel Mnemosyne (2021-2022), produced together with the TextileLab in Tilburg, will be on show for the first time during the annual Prospects exhibition of the Mondrian Fund during Art Rotterdam. Fossil Fuel Mnemosyne researches the historical, present and future connections between oil and myth in aquatic fossil fuel landscapes. By undertaking residencies close to the oil industry’s working places, ecological facts, personal stories and local myths encountered in the landscapes are used to explore the commercial use of both oil and myth.

The Mondriaan Fund organizes the annual Prospects exhibition to give an extra impulse to the visibility of starting artists. Having them all together at Art Rotterdam gives art professionals and collectors, as well as a broad group of interested visitors, the opportunity to become acquainted with the work of these promising artists.

Workshop Concrete Reef with students from the Institute of Fine Arts Maastricht
© Deep Time Agency

Concrete Reef | A Workshop in a Cement Quarry for the Minor Artistic Research in Situ -Institute of Fine Arts Maastricht (16 - 19 March 2022)

In march 2022 we gave a site-specific workshop to the students of the Institute of Fine Arts in the ENCI quarry in Maastricht. During the workshop, we opened up the process of Concrete Reef, further developing the project within an educational framework. The production of the new work is generously supported by the Mondriaan Fonds and the Stichting Niemeijer Fonds.

In 2019, artists Miriam Sentler and Wouter Osterholt set up an interdisciplinary research initiative: Deep Time Agency. DTA is designed as a multi-year research project that recontextualizes archaeological objects in industrially changed landscapes in collaboration with local residents, stakeholders and institutions. The initiative merges different historical time layers of places to form a material voice for the present and future of the disrupted landscapes, working in an activist and poetic way with the symbolics of the objects.

Janus Walk at Exploded View, Arti et Amicitiae, Amsterdam © Maarten Nauw

Janus Walk | A Group Exhibition at Exploded View - Arti et Amicitiae Amsterdam (25 Feb. - 27 March 2022)

In 2018 and 2019, 13 international artists went on an extended research period to the Parco Regionalle Dell´Appia Antica in Rome (IT). The project took place within the artistic research project Exploded View, organized by curator Dr. Krien Clevis, Prof. dr. Gert-Jan Burgers (VU-Chair in Mediterranean archaeology and heritage/director CLUE+) and Alice Smits (artistic director Zone2Source Amsterdam). The final works will be on show at Arti et Amicitiae Amsterdam in February 2022 and has previously been exhibited and presented at Ex Cartiera Latina and MACRO, Museum for Contemporary Art, Rome.

Sentler´s project Janus Walk - A Lament for Lost Rites (2019) emphasizes the immaterial and performative rituals of the Via Appia Antica, and how these have been threatened by the over-trafficking of the ancient pilgrimage route. By reintroducing the Roman god Janus and by redeploying him within a performance over the first few miles of the Via Appia Antica, a rare gesture of slowness, performativity and spirituality was made. During the travel, the Roman god of travel and transition guarded the traveler, again fulfilling his role as a protecting spirit.

CAIRBAN, Hebridean Sea, July 2021. © Miriam Sentler

CAIRBAN: A Contemporary Shark Hunt | A Performance at Prøverommet - Bergen Kulturhuset, METEOR (26 Oct. 2021)

Reading performance with Robert Carter, presentation ‘The Cairban Gazette’, artist publication realised together with Sadie Hale (PT/UK 1992). During METEOR 2021. Prøverommet is BIT Teatergarasjen's autonomous sidekick, which moves between arenas, galleries and other places around Bergen. This concept provides the opportunity for new voices, new material, thoughts and ideas to be tested in an informal and dynamic alternative to the permanent institutions in Bergen. It has existed together with BIT Teatergarasjen's season program since 1998, and has always searched for the latest developments in the underground of Bergen's art scene.

The performance CAIRBAN – A Contemporary Shark Hunt is rooted within a three-day sea journey on the Atlantic Ocean, searching for the elusive Basking Shark. The project is initiated by artist Miriam Sentler (1994, DE/NL) and environmental humanities researcher Sadie Hale (1992, UK/PT) and formed their first collaboration. The performance is accompanied by the launch of a new artist publication: ‘The Cairban Gazette’, a newspaper which gathers different historical gazes on the Basking shark, spanning from the 18th century until the present day. The front page features the news about the crew's own non-encounter, letting the shark ‘off the hook’ after centuries of being captured in newspaper headlines.

Sampling in the Textiellab, the professional workplace of the Textielmuseum Tilburg

© *Lotte van Dijk

Fossil Fuel Mnemosyne | Production of a New Tapestry at the TextielLab / TextielMuseum Tilburg (Aug. - Dec. 2021)

Thanks to the amazing support of the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, Stichting Stokroos and the Mondriaan Fonds, I will develop a new, large-scale textile work at the Textielmuseum in the upcoming months.

The TextielLab is the professional working place of the Textielmuseum. It distinguishes itself as a one-of-a-kind knowledge centre for textile development where professionals are explicitly involved in carrying out extraordinary, customised projects. The TextielLab focuses on manual and industrial techniques: weaving, knitting, embroidery, tufting, passementerie and laser cutting. For visitors, the TextielLab offers a unique glimpse at textile manufacturing techniques both old and new. Here you can watch professionals at work.

Recording birdsongs 2021. © Sadie Hale

The Chase: An Artist Talk and Auditive Performance | A Solo presentation at CIAP/ FLACC Genk (14 Aug. 2021)

Guest speakers: composer Drake Stoughton (USA)
& ornithologist Johan Schoonaert (BE)

CIAP invites Miriam to be the next guest to animate a piece of public furniture — the heated daybed, realised on the C-mine site by Ciel Grommen and Maximiliaan Royakkers. Departing from the question of how to inhabit the ‘disturbed landscape’of Winterslag, their project Le Paysage Ménagé provided both a physical and theoretical framework for future interventions on site. Miriam Sentler’s talk and auditory performance is the second episode in the series of events planned on and around the heated daybed, and bringing together its different users.

The event marks the beginning of a longer project at Jester Genk, researching the post-industrial landscape of Genk in Belgium.

Oil platform at Agotnes, documentation of residency in Bergen, november 2021
© Miriam Sentler

Fossil Fuel Mnemosyne | A Residency at USF Verftet Residency, Bergen Norway (16 Sept. -16 Nov. 2021)

In the upcoming year and with the generous financial support of the Stipendium for Emerging Artists of the Mondriaan Fund and the Gerbrandy Culture Fund, I will start a period of site-specific research into aquatic fossil fuel landscapes. The artistic project Fossil Fuel Mnemosyne discusses the triangle of the natural, the industrial and the mythical in industrially deployed seascapes, questioning the use of mythical symbols and natural matter by the fossil fuel industry.

For this new project, I will stay from September until December 2021 at the United Sardine Factory residency in Bergen, Norway. USF Verftet and the council of Bergen offers a residency to professional artists of all fields. The aim is to strengthen, promote and develop collaborations between contemporary artists in Bergen and foreign artists. Yearly, an average of eight international artists and writers are selected for the residency program.

Documentation of residency on Isle of Coll, Scotland, july 202. © Sadie Hale

Fossil Fuel Mnemosyne | A Residency at KNOCKvologan Residency, Mull, Scotland (02 Jul. -01 Aug. 2021)

In the upcoming year and with the generous financial support of the Stipendium for Emerging Artists of the Mondriaan Fund and the Gerbrandy Culture Fund, I will start a period of site-specific research into aquatic fossil fuel landscapes. The artistic project Fossil Fuel Mnemosyne discusses the triangle of the natural, the industrial and the mythical in industrially deployed seascapes, questioning the use of mythical symbols and natural matter by the fossil fuel industry.

For this new project, I will stay in July 2021 at the KNOCKvologan Residency on the Isle of Mull in Scotland, together with writer Sadie Hale. The residency offers a remote refuge for art, literature, research and nature preservation and strengthens collaborations between artists, writers, researchers and the local community. During our residency, we will research natural origins of oil production, focussing on the plankton-feeding Basking Shark inhabiting the waters around the Isle of Mull.