-1 Digital Lab-1 Digital Lab

Raphaëlle Von Knebel, 2026

Offshore Signals, Feeding the Sun is a research project developed at –1 Digital Lab as part of Nouveau Grand Tour NL 2026.

Anchored in solar light data from Rotterdam and Réunion Island, the project builds a personal, evolving archive of the sun, filtered through a Creole lens. Alongside climate data from KNMI, the project draws on literary fragments by writers from the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean, including Ananda Devi, Jacqueline Manicom, Shenaz Patel, and Rosemay Nivard. Their descriptions of sunlight frame it as a political, cosmological, and embodied experience. Light becomes a territory: a space of dialogue between two water-bound geographies, one tropical and insular, the other continental and defined by its port-city character.

The project also takes the form of Conversations about the Sun, a series of invitations to artists, researchers, and scientists to share their knowledge, memories, and sensibilities surrounding this polymorphic star. How does its perception shift across geographies, bodies, and narratives?

Raphaëlle Von Knebel (b. 1996, Saint-Pierre, Réunion Island) is an artist working with installation, sound, and writing. Her practice explores insularity, climate, and diasporic memory. She studied at the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Strasbourg, the Haute École des Arts du Rhin, ISDAT Toulouse, and the Design Academy Eindhoven, where her graduation project, Voices of the Island, was presented at Dutch Design Week.

A laureate of the Chemin des Affinités, Ondes, and 2-12 programmes (2024), she conducted research at MadEmergent Art Centre (Eindhoven) with support from Culture Moves Europe. In 2025, she participated in the Viva Villa Festival alongside residents of Casa de Velázquez, Villa Kujoyama, and Villa Médicis. In 2026, she joined Documents d’Artistes La Réunion. She is currently a laureate of Nouveau Grand Tour NL, in partnership with Institut Français.