Thulu Thu Thu - Before the Sun Harms You. Sonic and Haptic Forms of Solidarity in Environmental Spectralities

The artist duo knowbotiq were invited in 2019/20 by the Timespan Heritage and Art Center in the Scottish Highlands to develop a project on the ecologies of the peat bogs. The resulting project, „Thulu thu thu, before the sun harms you“, traced and unfolded past, present and future entanglements and narratives of materialities in the peat land, it’s inscribed asymmetric violence and the impacts of racialized capitalism. The artistic unfolding of the land developed performative acts of „collective sensing“ - groups of people connected through a multitudinous object of braided plant fibers (Thulhu) to apprehend the vibrations of the peatlands. Their explorations were accompanied by „sonic incantations“ - knowbotiq invited other artists for producing a fractured series of sounds, songs and readings. The incantations were articulated from various planetary positions, invoking the inhumane politics of the Anthropocene.