In Search of the Pluriverse

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. 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.
We were inspired and overwhelmed by Mull and everything the island contains and shared with us.  This is one of 13 talks. We edited it like ‘a string of pearls’. It works best to jump from one pearl to the next, starting at the beginning… Enjoy! 
For more context and information about our search for the pluriverse and the upcoming exhibition we are curating: go to pluriverse.hetnieuweinstituut.nl

Thriving on Mull #9: Tom Morton on emptiness

Architect Tom Morton founded ARC, 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.
We were inspired and overwhelmed by Mull and everything the island contains and shared with us.  This is one of 13 talks. We edited it like ‘a string of pearls’ It works best to jump from one pearl to the next, starting at the beginning… Enjoy! 
For more context and information about our search for the pluriverse and the upcoming exhibition we are curating: go to pluriverse.hetnieuweinstituut.nl

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.We were inspired and overwhelmed by Mull and everything the island contains and shared with us.  This is one of 13 talks. We edited it like ‘a string of pearls’ It works best to jump from one pearl to the next, starting at the beginning… Enjoy!For more context and information about our search for the pluriverse and the upcoming exhibition we are curating: go to pluriverse.hetnieuweinstituut.nl

Thriving on Mull #7: Vertical plastic: sailing with Mark Jardine

In the meantime our guests from the Netherlands and Scotland have arrived: Anne van Leeuwen, Tom Morton, Tim Collins & Reiko Goto. Unfortunately our fifth guest Aslı Hatipoğlu bumped into the invisible Nation State wall and didn’t make it further than Schiphol airport. Her talk is the last one in this series, we looked her up in Maastricht when we got back. Before we dive into 1 on 1 talks, we went for a ‘vertical field trip’. A communal effort to really relate to where we are. With skipper Mark Jardine we sailed to a remote beach at the south side of nature reserve Tireragan, to cl ean 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.We were inspired and overwhelmed by Mull and everything the island contains and shared with us.  This is one of 13 talks. We edited it like ‘a string of pearls’. It works best to jump from one pearl to the next, starting at the beginning… Enjoy! For more context and information about our search for the pluriverse and the upcoming exhibition we are curating: go to pluriverse.hetnieuweinstituut.nl

Thriving on Mull #6: Having 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. 
We were inspired and overwhelmed by Mull and everything the island contains and shared with us.  This is one of 13 talks. We edited it like ‘a string of pearls’ It works best to jump from one pearl to the next, starting at the beginning… Enjoy! 
For more context and information about our search for the pluriverse and the upcoming exhibition we are curating: go to pluriverse.hetnieuweinstituut.nl 

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. 
We were inspired and overwhelmed by Mull and everything the island contains and shared with us.  This is one of 13 talks. We edited it like ‘a string of pearls’ It works best to jump from one pearl to the next, starting at the beginning… Enjoy! 
For more context and information about our search for the pluriverse and the upcoming exhibition we are curating: go to pluriverse.hetnieuweinstituut.nl 

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. 
We were inspired and overwhelmed by Mull and everything the island contains and shared with us.  This is one of 13 talks. We edited it like ‘a string of pearls’ It works best to jump from one pearl to the next, starting at the beginning… Enjoy! 
For more context and information about our search for the pluriverse and the upcoming exhibition we are curating: go to pluriverse.hetnieuweinstituut.nl 

Thriving on Mull #3: Baking bread with Rutger Emmelkamp

While Erik and Miek are hiking, Sophie joins Rutger at his morning routine of baking bread. It took him more than a year to get it right: to build a productive relation with the sourdough culture that helps him bake the bread. As a bonus Rutgers shows the ‘barn in a barn’ that he has been building for the past two years. We give you two words: pig manure and resilience.
Rutger Emmelkamp is an artist, teacher and program maker. He connects art, historical and deep ecology theory with film, literature, theater and 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. 
We were inspired and overwhelmed by Mull and everything the island contains and shared with us. This is one of 13 talks. We edited it like ‘a string of pearls’. It works best to jump from one pearl to the next, starting at the beginning… Enjoy!
 
For more context and information about our search for the pluriverse and the upcoming exhibition we are curating, go to the web magazine: pluriverse.hetnieuweinstituut.nl .

Thriving on Mull #2: A walk with Miek Zwamborn

Early Birds Miek and Erik go for a walk and enter a magical world. Eaten alive by the midges they talk about how much we don’t know and how Miek finds words for things she sees: by looking at them over and over and over again. As a bonus Miek reads the poem ‘Oaks at Knockvologan’ bij local poet Derek Crook.
Miek Zwamborn is an artist, novelist, book maker and translator. Whilst carrying out field research, she travels through time and space. By intertwining her observations with local history and scientific research on flora & fauna, she creates stories 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). 
We were inspired and overwhelmed by Mull and everything the island contains and shared with us.  This is one of 13 talks. We edited it like ‘a string of pearls’. It works best to jump from one pearl to the next, starting at the beginning… Enjoy!
 
For more context and information about our search for the pluriverse and the upcoming exhibition we are curating, go to the web magazine: pluriverse.hetnieuweinstituut.nl

Thriving on Mull #1: Miek Zwamborn and Rutger Emmelkamp

Finally: after a warming up that took us longer than expected, we take you to the weather beaten, Scottish Isle of Mull. And how better to arrive than meeting our hosts Miek and Rutger. Two Dutch artists who decided to move to the southern tip of the island. There, surrounded by sea, sheep, bog and a nature reserve, they worked the past five years to build, stumble, fall, getting up and getting connected. We meet them at a moment when surviving slowly turns into thriving. The ‘dance of daily life’ becomes smoother and their artist in residency program Knockvologan is gaining momentum. These two are not going anywhere, they are here to stay. But, have they arrived yet?
We were inspired and overwhelmed by Mull and everything the island contains and shared with us.  This is one of 13 talks. We edited it like ‘a string of pearls’ It works best to jump from one pearl to the next, starting at the beginning… Enjoy!
 
For more context and information about our search for the pluriverse and the upcoming exhibition we are curating, go to the web magazine: pluriverse.hetnieuweinstituut.nl