Welcome to KNOCKvologan Studio,

a vibrant hub for creative research and environmental stewardship, KNOCKvologan Studio is founded and curated by artists Miek Zwamborn and Rutger Emmelkamp. We merge art, literature, music, food, gardening, and nature to foster new perspectives on the relationship between humans and the living world.

At KNOCKvologan Studio, we deeply engage with the land and culture that surrounds us. By balancing local stories with global voices, we build a creative community that inspires new ways of thinking, living, and coexisting with our environment.

Explore our diverse range of projects & residencies and connect with us on Instagram to stay updated.

Currently / Upcoming / Past

The Seaweed Gatherings II - A twilight procession and bonfire at Ardalanish 

Saturday 31st May | Ardalanish Beach

This workshop will focus on the potential for seaweed to act as a cultural resource beyond its economic value for the communities in which it is found: as a kind of ‘totem’ that can help to develop an enhanced sense of identity, understanding and aspiration. The event will take the form of a procession down to the beach at Ardalanish and will be open to all to participate. The procession will involve elements of performance and ceremony that attempt to create a sense of ritual focusing on seaweed. This will include communal singing, movement and dance, and will culminate in a ceremonial cutting of seaweed at low tide. The ritual will draw on the idea of the seaweed and the ‘knowledge’ it contains and represents as a kind of oracle that can be consulted to gain useful wisdom.

This bespoke ritual is in part inspired by the annual seaweed harvest festival at the Mekari shrine in Kyushu, Japan when the priests descend into the water at the lunar new year to harvest the first seaweed of the year before offering it to the local kami/deities. 

Iona Lane - album launch

Saturday 5th July | KNOCKvologan Barn | 19:00

We are looking forward to hear Swilkie, the new album from Highlands-based songwriter Iona Lane, who weaves ecology, conservation, islands and folklore into poetic songs and contemplative melodies. Written during three residencies on the Isle of Eigg, Isle of Mull and Sanday in Orkney, sense of place and landscape are at the core of these songs. From basking sharks to lighthouses, lichen to vanishing islands, curlews to tree planting; the album was recorded in a boathouse on the West Coast of Scotland and the eager listener may even hear the lapping sound of the tide murmuring through the album. Iona’s connection to places by the sea is translated through these songs with evolving vocal melodies, subtle guitar and droning shruti box. 

For tickets drop us an email.

“Lyrics and musical arrangements crackle with wide-eyed curiosity.” - Jude Rogers, The Guardian

“A real talent!” - Mark Radcliffe, BBC Radio 2 Folk Show 

"Iona feels like a kindred spirit with her gorgeous evocations of landscape and geeky scientific references." - Karine Polwart

“An ethereal voice, poetic phrase and storytelling” - BBC Countryfile Magazine

Arandora Star Commemoration

Sunday 6th July | Knockvologan Beach | 14:00

Join us at our yearly poetry gathering around the remains of one of the lifeboats of the Arandora Star, which was en route to Canada on Tuesday 2nd July 1940 and got torpedoed off the coast of Ireland by a German submarine. The luxury liner, turned troopship, had been equipped with some armaments and painted in battleship grey. It was adopting the zig-zag course typical of a warship, reducing its vulnerability to torpedo fire. On board were an estimated 1,615 men: Jewish refugees, Austrian, German, and Italian internees and prisoners of war as well as British military guards and crew. Just over half of those on the ship survived the sinking. A few days later one of the Arandora Star’s fourteen lifeboats came ashore at Knockvologan beach on the Isle of Mull. It is still there buried in the sand.

The Seaweed Gatherings III - The Gift of Making

Sunday July 20th | KNOCKvologan Barn 14:00-16:00

After working out in the open during the first two workshops, we now return to the studio with our harvest and shared experience to explore the act of making as an offering – a gift. Inspired by Robin Wall Kimmerer’s reflections on reciprocity and sustainable harvest, The Gift of Making invites participants to engage with seaweed as both a living material and a cultural force. Through collaborative trials, we’ll explore seaweed’s material qualities in a hands-on, improvisational way. Drawing on local knowledge and welcoming guest makers, we’ll share skills in a spirit of generosity and curiosity. This workshop is not about perfection or permanence, but about giving something back – to the land, the sea, and to one another. 

Hebridean Healers

Saturday May 3rd  2 pm | Creich Hall | Fionnphort

The four authors of Hebridean Healers warmly invite you to an illustrated presentation when they will share with you some of the fascinating things they have discovered about the lives of the Beaton physicians of Pennycross; their history, their garden, the plants they used and their manuscripts. 

Take this unique opportunity to have your book signed.

When Animals Speak - Eva Meijer

Saturday 5th April 2pm | KNOCKvologan Yard 

Drawing on insights from their own close relationships with animals, science, philosophy, and politics, Eva Meijer provides fascinating, real-world examples of animal communities who use their voices to speak, and act. In their talk When Animals Speak they encourage us to rethink our relations with other animals, showing that their voices should be taken into account as the starting point for a new interspecies democracy.

In their latest book Multispecies Dialogues Eva Meijer develops a new understanding of the concept ‘dialogue’, which includes embodied, material and spatial interaction. Meijer does not do this alone: each chapter of the book is devoted to a dialogue, or set of dialogues – with street dog Olli, a community of former lab mice, amphibian neighbours, the North Sea, and many other beings. Taking multispecies dialogues seriously is a way to do justice to more-than-human agency and to become more worldly in a time dominated by humans. Rethinking the model of the dialogue also opens up new ways of doing philosophy in multispecies world, which is urgently needed to address the ecological, political and philosophical problems of our time.

Eva Meijer is a Dutch philosopher, visual artist, writer and singer-songwriter. They write novels, philosophical essays, academic texts, poems and columns, and their work has been translated into over twenty languages. Recurring themes are language (including silence), madness, nonhuman animals, and politics.

Fermenting Tales

18th January | KNOCKvologan Barn

We warmly invite you to join us for a shared lunch and recipe exchange on Saturday January 18th from 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM at KNOCKvologan Studio.
We hope to kick off a Ferment Club and invite anyone passionate or curious about pickling, fermenting, or preserving. Bring along your favourite creations—whether it’s chutney, kimchi, sauerkraut, kefir, bread, or any other preserved delight—and share your stories, techniques, and tips. Together, we’ll taste, talk, and explore how these time-honoured practices connect us to both tradition and sustainable futures.

Looking forward to seeing you then!

A way in

16th November, 7pm, St Luke’s, London.

Time passes, leaving footprints behind her. Roots twist and deepen, leaves unfurl, turn orange, fall, and decay, tents are pitched and unpitched, the tide changes. 

Rufus Isabel Elliot’s new work for piano trio imagining the wavering songs that belong intrinsically to a bivvy place amongst the cliffs of Tireragan – songs that transform a place in the wild into a sleeping place. Featuring visuals by KNOCKvologan Studio, it hopes to bring that place alive in the hall of LSO St Luke’s.

The première of the music and video is on November 16th performed by the London Symphony Orchestra in St Luke’s.

On 28th September we had the honour to host two exceptional guests: Alison Phipps (UNESCO Chair in Refugee Integration) and Tawona Sithole (Writer in Residence at the University of Glasgow). They shared their insights with warmth and humor, supported by the Ross of Mull Poets.

THIS IS ENOUGH.
We are taking part in This is Enough, an ongoing project curated by Nina Pope and Karen Guthry. This project explores the natural abundance and biodiversity of Aros Walled Garden in Tobermory through mindful observation and gentle intervention.

Exhibition Zitternde Zungen - Salon*8
Gallery Ursula Walter - Dresden - Germany
23.03.2024 - 20.04.2024