Project details
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| Project Leader |
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| Funding Program | Postdoc-Voucher |
| Duration | Sept 2023 – Aug 2025 |
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Sign up to join the Windy Wind Research-Study Group HERE!
Breath & Breeze: Tongueless whispers of the wind* is a research-creation project that looks at the wind, wind technology, and the Dutch colonial footprint in Barbados and other Caribbean islands that are still connected to the Netherlands.
The Dutch played an extensive role in shaping colonial rule, slavery, trade, labour, and the plantation economies through the use of wind technology. For example, at one time Barbados had more than 500 windmills, more than any other country besides the Netherlands. The skeletal remains of these windmills are part of the visual landscape of the island, reminding us of something that is supposed to be long over and done with, but which lingers unresolved.
The research investigates what it means to trace the politicization of wind figuratively, creatively, and deliberately. The purpose is to explore reparative justice and how past colonial structures and the systems of power that built them continue to haunt the present. The research uses visual autoethnography / autotheory methods, on-site field research, semi-structured interviews, and will offer interactive teaching and making public moments // a publication.
The project is a collaboration between Skye Maule-O’Brien and Amsterdam-based artist, Mirjam Linschooten. Skye is undertaking this project as a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Social Practices.
Early meditations on the wind (video): https://vimeo.com/790391028
*The title for the project comes from Guyanese poet Martin Carter’s poem called Listening to the Land, where he speaks of hearing difficult (or haunting) histories held in the soils of the Caribbean.
Windy Wind Research-Study Group
Sign up to join the Windy Wind Research-Study Group HERE
The Windy Wind group will meet monthly from January to June, but you are not obligated to join every month. Come through when you can!
Meetings will be in the WdKA Research Station (unless noted differently) on the following Thursdays from 17:00-19:00:
- 30 Jan
- 13 Feb
- 20 Mar
- 10 Apr
- 8 May
- 5 June
- 19 June – Final meeting location TBD
Do you ever think about the wind? Yes? No? Join the Windy Wind Research-Study Group!
Wind touches everything—carrying with it stories of movement, power, and connection—and yet, it is often invisible, intangible, and overlooked.
Beginning in January 2025 we will meet monthly to critically and creatively think about the wind as a dynamic force that connects our bodies, geographies, and the climate.
Through embodied forms of study, research, and making, we will engage with the wind, combining field research (we will go outside sometimes!), observation, discussions, storytelling, reading, free-writing and more!
Collectively we will decide what and how we study with the wind. Some possible questions to begin with are: What do the wind(s) of the Netherlands tell us about colonial histories? Wind moves through and around us, how can we give form to something we can’t hold, yet can feel and experience in countless ways? How can we enter a conversation with the wind? How can we create with the wind? What is our role and responsibilities in a such a collaboration?
Maybe you are working on a project that includes related questions of winds, air, currents, water, etc.? Bring your ideas to share your interests and research with the group!
The Windy Wind Study Group is part of the larger research project, Breath & Breeze: Tongueless whispers of the wind, initiated by Skye Maule-O’Brien in the WdKA Research Center.
