… How to enter a tide pool? Or, even not?

Is it possible to disturb (after the ecological term disturbance) by invitation?

What perspectives on relationships (human and non-human) emerge when I follow their detailed spatial dimensions thinking-in-movement?

What worldings do I recognise and co-shape by following emplaced paths of proximity and distance? And, how are relationships affected through closeness and farness?

How can I respond to ______ crises through tactile, DIY material practice to connect the planetary to the personal?

November 23, 2022, Manly to Spit Walk, Sydney (AUS): Fascinated, I stand on a rock formation in the intertidal zone for the first time in my life and look at the photo I just took. From a bird's eye view, I have captured an oval, fossilized-looking remnant of former life. Having grown up in a culture with a lack of marine identity or education, I think I have found an archaic impression.

August 9, 2024, Stuttgart (DE): The ancient, dead eye surrounded by past barnacles inscribed itself into my daydreams. Spurred on by this, I went looking for help. Katarzyna Vončina, PhD researcher at Senckenberg Ocean Species Alliance, Frankfurt am Main, named the mysterious critter a chiton – S. pelliserpentis.

For me, this experience represents a fundamental shift in sympathies: as a child, I learned to be intrigued by species with "good looks and good luck to be anthropomorphically cute" (Probyn, 2016). However, a chiton does not necessarily belong to the group of beings that will play a leading role in the next Disney film. So different from my human body, they are capable of curling into a ball, sensory perception through their shells, and bearing an unbelievable evolutionary lineage. For me, this indicates a need to not only speculate what I can learn with and from these critters, but to start the challenging correspondence with this marine mollusc.

June 25, 2026, Fountianstown, Co. Cork (IRE): "What is it like to be a bat?", Thomas Nagel asks in his 1974 essay. I join this line of flight – from toes in tide pools to head in the sun – and wonder: "What is it like to be a chiton?"

Or even more: What do I learn about myself as a terrestrial being with feet on dry ground by researching, observing, dreaming and tactilely working in proximity and distance to chitons?

The chitons I have met so far mirrored my own presence back to me in their ancient molluscan body capacities. Thanks to all of them, all Lepidochitona cinerea at Fountainstown, for throwing me back on being human, on being a fool!

July 28, 2026, Stuttgart (DE): Instead of following concepts such as corresponding (Ingold, 2020) or thinking-with (Haraway, 2016) any longer, I feel a humbling need to remain a little longer in the power-from-within (Starhawk, 1988). I am now able to materialise an opening into a contact zone grown in personal encounters with those who are not washed ashore, but have stuck around their common grounds long before humans realised the value of a freedom to stay (von Redecker, 2023).

When do you grasp that a non-human other gets under your skin and weaves a magical kinship – becomes a familiar – into your presence?

My body trembles from-afar at the (imagined) screeching sound of coat-of-mail shells.

… It is the beginning of sympathy-from-afar.

Sticking around the interstitial as place and thinking space of societal change (Redecker, 2018), chitons living in their own shadowy realm make me smirk: "What (do) We Do in the Shadows" (Clement & Waititi, 2014)?

Might it be in the shade of a shipwreck or under a solar sail crossing the urban heat island, the sun-protected zone becomes an in-between to hold together. Broken down to the bone, Shadow and Bone (Bardugo, 2012), cracks in rock pools might be the place of longing to dive into shadow diversity (Turton-Hughes, Holmes & Hassall, 2024).

A first chitonish lesson might be: Cling to the wet stony edges in the shade, especially if it is a shadow place (Plumwood, 2008). Take it all in, Boulderbaby, Boulder Baby!

After each chapter full of wisdom from ecofeminism over taxonomy to affect studies, I need a little gem: Thoughts and photos from my field trips together with Claudia and Irene.

💦 A huge thank you for all the walks and talks to Claudia Barton and Irene Murphy, as well as the whole In-House group 💦

Find out more about The Guesthouse Collective.

Guest @ The Guesthouse Collective, Cork (06/26)

… How to enter a tide pool? Or, even not?

Is it possible to disturb (after the ecological term disturbance) by invitation?

Or even more: What do I learn about myself as a terrestrial being with feet on dry ground by researching, observing, dreaming and tactilely working in proximity and distance to chitons?

When do you grasp that a non-human other gets under your skin and weaves a magical kinship – becomes a familiar – into your presence?

A first chitonish lesson might be: Cling to the wet stony edges in the shade, especially if it is a shadow place (Plumwood, 2008). Take it all in, Boulderbaby, Boulder Baby!

tuber uncinatum – to be continued @One Earth, Kunstverein Neuhausen, 10-11/26

Im Fluss sein, 20.06-26.07.26, Galerie Altes Rathaus Musberg