In search of the Pluriverse
On the weather-beaten island of Mull, off the west coast of Scotland, two artists from the Netherlands set up camp, taking a vow to "work with the elements, not fight them". Over time they grew a garden, a seasonal residency programme and a neighbourhood barn-in-a-barn. How to thrive and make kin with other humans and non-humans in such a remote place, year round? The team of In Search of the Pluriverse will find out by temporarily relocating to this northern edge of Europe.
Where is Knockvologan?
KNOCKvologan (pronounced nokvologen and Kv for short) is a remote refuge for art, literature, research and nature preservation founded by Miek Zwamborn and Rutger Emmelkamp on Mull, Scotland. An isle, which itself is part of a greater island with its own history: the UK - a classic European powerhouse and union of different territories. The Scots' recent vote to remain in the EU and to disown Brexit illustrates the difficulty of 'living in difference' (Escobar 2018). Is looking towards the Nordic countries for productive alliances a better option for Scotland's future? This Guardian article by Ian Jack seems to suggest so.
"Within 25 years," the authors of the speculative book Scotland 2070 write, "Scotland will be on the doorstep of a major new global sea trading passage and a new economic region in the Arctic." Can looking at land from the perspective of water trigger new perspectives ? Is Mull land surrounded by water, or water with a piece of land in it? How does the island identity determine life on Mull?
"For islanders, if you don't stay year round and skip the long, isolated winter, you don't count - you remain an outsider. A local saying illustrates this: when you hear the cuckoo again at the start of spring, you have survived the winter. We are ourselves still searching for how to belong here." (Rutger Emmelkamp)
Every locality has its own Norths and Souths - struggles across class and ways of life, between haves and have nots. So too does the Isle of Mull. Its barren landscape enlarges all activity on the island and leaves nothing unseen. It is a stage on which many actors co-habit, and sometimes conflict. A stage where crofters (the Scottish term for those who traditionally tend the land) gather in tight assemblies to debate anticipated cuts in EU subsidies, and tactics of solidarity.
Meanwhile the Duke of Argyll and other landowners who have the means to fence in land, benefit from the establishment of nature resorts. Can these defuturing scenarios be circumvented? With this episode, Thriving on Mull, Wong & Krier design-dream (Disoñar) futures-with-a-future with human and more-than-human life forms on the island.
Getting in the mood for Mull
Wong & Krier needed some more context before they left for the UK, Scotland, Mull. To touch base before the actual travel. They choose for a climate/activist perspective - Climate conference COP26, Glasgow is coming up in November - and they wanted to gain more insight in economic/political innovation at a local/community level in the UK. Listen to their conversations with Suzanne Dhaliwal and Jay Tompt.
Getting in the Mood for Mull #1
Suzanne Dhaliwal is 'climate justice campaigner' and artist. She was part of the Art Not Oil coalition, challenging BP and Shell's corporate sponsorship in the arts, and strives for more inclusivity within the climate movement. Because: Why is Britain's green movement still an all white affair? Brexit, the pandemic and 'activist fatigue' made Dhaliwal relocate to Croatia recently, from where she continues her work. A talk about making privileges productive, a megaphone as listening tool, and the power of making the absent present.
Getting in the Mood for Mull #2
Jay Tompt is a lecturer in the MA Regenerative Economics at Schumacher College and co-founder of the Totnes REconomy Project (UK), for which he regularly delivers trainings in transition. A 'political entrepreneur with California style enthusiasm'. Jay works as an executive, consultant, activist and writer. His areas of expertise include citizen-led economics, ethical consuming, green supply chain and waste reduction. A talk about the marginal position of local politics in the UK, the come back of the commons, about the potential of dragons and the power of participation. Listen to an insider who plays the outsider-card whenever needed.
Thriving on Mull #1: Miek Zwamborn & Rutger Emmelkamp
For this episode of In Search of the Pluriverse, KNOCKvologan founders Miek Zwamborn and Rutger Emmelkamp will be the island guides. One of the first manifest rules Miek and Rutger set for themselves when relocating to the Ross of Mull in 2016 was:
"To work with the elements, not fight them. (&) We explored the boundaries of our environment and its wild and overgrown crevices, we slept outdoors, mapped the area meticulously, swam the shores, dived, gathered and ate seaweed, worked with sheep alongside local crofters, fished and cooked on the rocks. We also measured the depth of peat fields, monitored various lichen species and studied the birds in the area."
Once Miek and Rutger got a sense of where they where, they started to invite others to share thoughts and ideas on how to enhance life forms indigenous to the isle. They have worked with an ecologist and ornithologist, a print master, an anthropologist, a computer programmer, a vegan sushi chef, poets and policy makers and several artist including a textile artist, a performance artist, a video artist and a jeweller.
Thriving on Mull #2
A walk with Miek Zwanborn
Miek Zwamborn is a Dutch artist, novelist, book maker and translator. While carrying out field research, she travels through time and space. By intertwining her observations with local history and scientific research on flora and fauna, she creates frame tales in which drawings, sculptures, raw material and books play a crucial role. She published among others a poetic anthology on seaweeds, The Seaweed Collector's Handbook (Profile, 2020).
Thriving on Mull #3
Baking bread with Rutger Emmelkamp
Rutger Emmelkamp is a Dutch artist, teacher and programme maker. As an arduous maker and reader, he connects art historical, literature and deep ecology theory with film, theater and artisanal crafts. In parallel, Rutger has been teaching in various art disciplines for more than ten years and was appointed head of the Jewellery Department at the Rietveld Academie Amsterdam in 2013 - a position he resigned from to dedicate his artistic practice and making skills to KNOCKvologan in 2017.
Thriving on Mull #4
A walk & talk with John Cameron
John and Linda Cameron live at Knockvologan 1, next door to where Miek and Rutger live. This is where the Ross of Mull ends, or begins. Camper drivers are often suprised by this fact and have to turn around, or… decide to spend the night on the land of the Camerons. John has lived here all his life, takes care of sheep and cows and drives his ‘quad’ with visible pleasure. A talk about being a crofter, the quality of grass, the deer problem, and cows that go on vacation to neighbour Jimmy’s pastures.
Thriving on Mull #5
Wading to Judy Gibson on Erraid
Judy Gibson spent all her childhood summers on the Isle of Erraid. 5 years ago she relocated here permanently. She shares the island – or tidal island – with the spiritual Findhorn community. Despite living across a narrow strip of sea, Judy is one of Miek and Rutger’s closest neighbours. A talk about community work, her father – Tony Gibson’s – legacy, and the inevitable effects of climate change on daily life.
Thriving on Mull #6:
Over for coffee with Jimmy Campbell
A bit further down the road lives Jimmy Campbell, the third neighbour we talked to. Apart from taking care of 600 sheep, Jimmy and his wife Christine run a succesful camping site, soon to be taken over his daughter and son in law. A talk about sheep that eat seaweed, the changing flow of tourists, the ultra low market price for wool, and helping each other out as neighbours.
Thriving on Mull #7: Vertical plastic. Sailing with Mark Jardine
Each Vertical Field Trip of Wong & Krier’s search for the pluriverse is a proposition to practice a shared acupuncture of place and mind – inspired by Sophie Krier’s ongoing School of Verticality research. Mull’s Vertical Field Trip took participants on a sailing trip with local skipper Mark Jardine to sense-feel (sentipensar) the connection between land and ocean and start a collective reflection on what islandness can teach us about dealing with scarcity. Sail along to a remote beach at the south side of nature reserve Tireragan, to clean up accumulated plastic waste. In this delightfully slow paced talk, Mark and his son Stewart tell about living and working at the edge of the ocean, the island economy, the relation with their ship and the art of avoiding danger. So close your eyes and smell the ocean.
One-on-one talks
Thriving on Mull #8
Tim Collins & Reiko Goto on empathy
Scotland-based artist duo Collins+Goto Studio (Tim Collins and Reiko Goto) are known for their long-term projects that involve socially engaged environmental research and practice in both the USA and the UK. In 2019, after ten years of research, they launched the Plein Air LP, featuring Scotland-based recordings with the help of a plant-driven synthesizer. Sophie meets up with Tim and Reiko on a rainy grey morning. How can we feel empathy with nature? How can we understand other-than-human life forms without speaking their language? And how will this deeper understanding affect us as humans? A talk about peat, post industrial Pittsburgh, the breath of a leave and a horse called Darkness.
Thriving on Mull #9
Tom Morton on emptiness
Architect Tom Morton founded ARC Architects, a small architectural practice based in a former candle-making workshop in Cupar, Fife, in the east of Scotland. Its nature-based work transcends architectural practice to encompass diverse creative and learning activities such as repairing mud walls, communicating material physics, and building festivals. Erik meets up with Tom in a 19th century lighthouse-builders-home on Erraid. They look out of the window. It looks empty, but what is emptiness? It is a very subjective, loaded word in this fringe of the UK: Tom, some context please! In this meandering talk they touch upon the concept of time and his recent collaboration with Ghanaian designer Mae-ling Lokko for the Future by Design Cove park residency, located one hour from Glasgow, overlooking Scotland’s Loch Long.
Thriving on Mull #10
Anne van Leeuwen on unboxing thinking
It is Anne van Leeuwen’s personal mission to bring about regenerative crossovers between nature and culture and to translate these into concrete projects and propositions. Part of this effort involves creating a constructive dialogue between scientists, artists, business persons, politicians, citizens and wherever possible non-humans. In the past years she co-founded the collective Embassy of the North Sea, which departs from the starting point that the sea owns itself. Their podcast series Voices of the North Sea explores this point of view. Anne – her energy seems endless – is also the co-founder of Bodemzicht, a regenerative farm and learning place, part of Het Nieuwe Instituut zoöp initiative. Eaten alive by the migets Anne and Erik talk about birds with a part-time zoo contract, the importance of listening to the sea, and those damn boxes you keep running into when you want to work in a true relational way with our surroundings.
Thriving on Mull #12
Aslı Hatipoğlu on microbes, food and community
Aslı Hatipoğlu is a weaver, researcher and cook. “ By cooking in specific environments, and engaging with people from different cultural backgrounds, I run into stories, which lead me to subjects such as history, psychology, spirituality, ecology and science. I translate these stories into textiles or printed edible materials, and curate dinners around these topics, making use of the social interaction that takes place when we eat together.” Sadly enough Aslı could not join us on Mull, so Erik looked her up in Maastricht where she was a participant at Jan van Eyck Academie, a post graduate programme for art, design and reflection. A talk about cooking, recipes, the locality of food and culture, our relationships with microbes and the deeper understanding of life they provide.
Thriving on Mull #11: Radio Round & About
After all these one-on-one talks it is time to listen, share and discuss in a larger local context. We invited more local voices: theater director Rebecca Atkinson-Lord (Tobermory), new generation Mull crofter Renatus Derbidge, Oban-based curator Naoko Mabon, artist Mhairi Killin (Iona) and fiddle player and researcher for South West Mull and Iona Development (SWID) Hanna Fischer. Neighbour Judy Gibson was present, Jimmy and John were too busy at their farms. Wpmg & Krier scripted this talk in many ways, but in the end they decided to just give the floor to the participants. They set up a circle, introduced the guests and a ‘talking stick’ and talked in two rounds: Round & About radio, based on the monthly local news magazine with the same name.
A long and horizontal talk about sourdough cultures, the (local) food economy, the big and complex question of how to thrive, the pain of ‘the 1750-1860 Highlands and Island Clearances’, the effects of tourism on the precarious housing situation and much more. And what about that swan that needed to be rescued? Sit back, go for a walk, or do the dishes and listen. This is the closest to Mull Wong & Krier can bring you. Special thanks to Hannah Fischer for playing the tune and Martin Low for making everyone very audible.
Bonus: 3 sticky dilemma's of small scale tourism in a globalised world
For this barn talk Wong & Krier made use of the March 2021 report by South West Mull and Iona Development (SWID) which captures in detail the tension between the opportunities that tourism provides in terms of employment and cultural exchange, versus the questions of capacity and livelihood preservation raised when numbers reach a certain threshold.
Dilemma number one: economy. Free camping is allowed everywhere in Scotland - a feat of radical hospitality that the Ilse of Mull embraces, but which has turned onto itself with the increasing popularity of van tourism. Like many isles on the popular coast of Scotland, the Isle of Mull is visited every summer by camper van tourists who arrive by ferry via Craignure. Their increased numbers over the years comes with a price however: damaged roads and litter. Recently, the asphalt has been repaired after the high season in preparation of the harsh winters. But a main issue remains: this form of tourism doesn't contribute enough to the local economy as campervans are often loaded with food supplies in Oban before hitting the road.
Dilemma number two: scale. The sheer scale of tourism today across the world, with bookings taking place anonymously via platforms such as Booking.com, can lead to a sense of being overwhelmed on the part of local populations. How do you build a relationship with your visitors if you cannot access their booking system? What if the personal expertise and interests of visitors could be filtered and matched with those of locals, as happens in the extensive agrotourism and agrolearning system Wwoofing?
Dilemma number three: belonging. The welcome loyalty of (B&B) tourists returning every year to Mull sometimes also comes with a sense of ownership; this was illustrated by some tourists claiming rights to visit the island during the pandemic.