A shell-shaped line

The first thing I saw on the beach in Knockvologan were seaweeds holding on to stones. Miek had taken me to the sea just after I arrived and I was deeply moved. By the colours of the rocks and sand, the many different creatures living in and around the water, and all the life-forms that showed themselves on the sand, like an exhibition. On my way to Mull I’d read The Light Eaters, Zoë Schlanger’s book about plant subjectivity, which connected some dots in my thinking about plants as beings. And here they were, all around us, using tools. After I saw the seaweeds using rocks, I saw plants using stones everywhere.

My stay in Knockvologan began with a taxi ride in 2019. Miek I were both invited to the book fair in Gothenburg, and we had arrived on the same plane so we shared a cab into town. We knew about each other but had never met before. I remember Miek telling me about Knockvologan, about carving out a life on the island, a way of living that aligned with the nonhumans there. In the years that followed we stayed in touch, mostly through writing, and collaborated on different projects. Miek and Rutger took part in an exhibition in my garden, Verwerelden* (Reworlding), and Miek co-designed my book Muizenleven (2025). 

We had been speaking about me coming to Knockvologan for years, but due to different circumstances I never made it. I did think and write about Miek and Rutger’s work in the meantime, and read Miek’s books, so when I finally arrived, I felt like I already knew the place.

I was especially looking forward to meeting the nonhuman inhabitants of Knockvologan Studies and the surroundings. I was not disappointed. Not long after I had put my bags in the studio, I was greeted by the resident chicken community. Grootmoeder and Haan were especially curious.

* https://themultispeciescollective.cargo.site/verwerelden-en

Haan really enjoys it when his photo is taken. He kept changing his pose slightly.

Nearly the whole group.

Grootmoeder in one of the dens the chickens dig for resting.

Other nonhumans came and went – from the observatory where I slept, I saw pregnant ewes, deer, and on the first day I met a trio of rooks who seemed very busy. It turned out they had built a nest in one of the trees next to the path to Tireragan.

My plan for my stay in Knockvologan was not to work on a project and use the area as input – I try to avoid that way of working, because it risks being consumerist and/or extractivist. Rather, I saw the visit as part of an ongoing collaboration and conversation with Miek and Rutger, during which my aim was to listen to the space and its inhabitants as the foundation for new work. I did so from different angles. I made a visual essay about the different forms of multispecies politics I witnessed – including sheep resistance, fences, persecution of mink, and chickens building community (‘Multispecies Commoning and Uncommoning in Knockvologan’, forthcoming in Humanimalia). I also did research for a paper about the political agency of plants, and I wrote poems and made drawings to catch that other side of reality, that is hidden behind description and analysis. And I took part in conversations with humans, formally, following the talk I gave, and informally, mostly during the sheep round up that I joined.

I had many conversations with Miek and Rutger too. I see Knockvologan Studies as an ongoing practice in learning to live differently, not just with regard to the nonhuman world but also through developing and fostering new social relations between humans. (I don’t usually have so much human interaction, and had not realised the extent of their level of human engagement before I arrived – for me this was a very human-social visit.) Miek also guided me on several walks with much attention and responsiveness, which allowed me to get to know many more beings than I would’ve on my own.

Miek introduced me to the old oak, one of the nonhuman elders of Tireragan.

She also told me that this stone is used as a table by many coastal birds. I saw many of these stone tables in and around Knockvologan. Stones are used by many creatures on Mull.

As ever, my underlying interest in Knockvologan concerned what it means to live justly and sustainably (understood both ecologically and socially) with others. Other humans and nonhumans. This question underscores and shapes most of my work. Over the years I have learned that it is one that we cannot answer just in theory: in order to think differently we need to live differently. This is how I understand Miek and Rutger’s work (and life) in Knockvologan Studies as well, as practicing change. 

In learning to live differently, we should give back to nonhuman creatures when possible, because of the ongoing human violence towards them. Giving back begins with taking them seriously as beings with their own value, and showing other humans aspects of their subjectivities and social lives that are generally neglected and misunderstood. This focus on their perspective and justice is often lacking from the discourse around nature conservation and rewilding, and I hope to have contributed to highlighting it during my visit and in the work that came out of my stay.

In the end, our lives are intertwined and not so different. During our first walk to the beach, Miek showed me the limpets who live on the rocks. They seem to be their permanently, but in fact often leave their position. They do always return to the same spot, and through leaving and returning their shells carve out a shell-shaped line in the rock. This is called a home scar. This expression helped me see that in and around Knockvologan and Tireragan all humans, other animals, plants and other beings constantly carve out their place to live, on land ruled by wind and seas, leaving traces that are slowly erased, and sometimes discovered by others. I am grateful for witnessing part of that and look forward to my next visit.

Of course, I did not just look at others, they also looked at me, especially the sheep.