Ecoes, Issue #4

Ecoes, the magazine about ‘art in the age of pollution’, launches a new trajectory for the Sonic Acts Press. Founded in 2021 and currently in its fourth issue, Ecoes is published twice a year and presents artworks engaging with the past, future or afterlives of environmental harm, toxicity and waste. A portmanteau of the words ‘ecology’ and ‘echoes’ – Ecoes centres loosely around alternatives to the anthropocentric view that sees the Earth as an endless resource. It continues Sonic Acts’ focus on presenting compelling artistic and critical perspectives reflecting on the rapidly changing world around us. With a ‘feature well on oil’ that dives deep into the ‘petrocapitalist noxiousness’ of our time, Ecoes #4 tells the personal stories of artists and researchers, inspiring and transforming different perspectives of reality. From experiences of cancer treatment, caregiving and its aftereffects, to ecological colonialism covering destroyed Palestinian villages with Aleppo pine; from misused restoration of the seminal oil pool sculpture by Noriyuki Haraguchi, to the long-lasting impact of the 2002 MV Prestige oil spill off the coast of Galicia. This powerful new issue explores the ways toxicity can be buried, leaked, and unearthed across scales of daily life and deep time. ABOUT SONIC ACTS PRESS Sonic Acts Press is the publishing arm of Sonic Acts, an interdisciplinary arts organisation based in Amsterdam that has gained prominence with its international Biennial programme, organised since 1994 – an intensive art, theory and technology gathering motivated by the changes in the ecological, political, technological, and social landscape. Over the years, the publications accompanying Sonic Acts grew in size, depth and complexity, and broke away from the traditional form of a festival catalogue. To better capture the flexible approaches to making, learning and thinking, Sonic Acts Press has expanded to explore new publishing formats, most recently launching a periodical magazine, Ecoes, and publications including All Thoughts Fly: Monster, Taxonomy, Film (Sasha Litvintseva, Beny Wagner), and Oil News 1989–2020 (Maryam Monalisa Gharavi, Sam Lavigne). Featuring: Anguille Vannamei — Noam Youngrak Son, Sarah Fitterer, Erik Peters, Fred Carter, Inas Halabi, Jeff Diamanti, Luke Fischbeck (lucky dragons), Marit Mihklepp, Miriam Matthiessen, Samia Henni, Sarah Rara (lucky dragons), Shirin Sabahi Description: With a ‘feature well on oil’ that dives deep into the ‘petrocapitalist noxiousness’ of our time, Ecoes tells the complex personal stories of artists and researchers, inspiring and transforming different perspectives of reality. The fourth edition interweaves works from Sonic Acts OVEREXPOSED residents with interviews from FieldARTS 2022 participants and other creators and thinkers from our Underexposed mentorship scheme, all considering the composite ways toxicity can be buried, leaked, and unearthed across scales of daily life and deep time. From personal experiences of cancer treatment, caregiving and its aftereffects, to building relations with mounds, piles and heaps all around us; from the long-lasting impact of the 2002 MV Prestige oil spill off the coast of Spain, to ecological colonialism covering destroyed Palestinian villages with Aleppo pine; from misused restoration of the seminal oil pool sculpture by Noriyuki Haraguchi, to poetry by Russian queer feminist poet Galina Rymbu that ‘historicises the chokehold on oil, gas, and grain supply, now crystallised in the invasion of Ukraine’. This issue of Ecoes offers a powerful immersion into art during times of pain, toxicity, illness and crude capitalism. Contents: INTRO Mirna Belina OIL’S DEPTH OF FIELD(S) Jeff Diamanti OIL, GAS, DUST: FROM THE SAHARA TO EUROPE Samia Henni TIDAL MEMORY: SIX FRAGMENTS OF AN OIL SPILL Miriam Matthiessen ‘CRUDE OIL SHAPING FORMS OF WRITING’: GALIA RYMBU’S LIFE IN SPACE Fred Carter BODY, MATTER AND MIND Shirin Sabahi MARIT MIHKLEPP: IF THERE IS NOWHERE TO HOLD ON TO, ROOT INTO YOURSELF AND GROW FROM THERE Interview by Victoria Douka-Doukopoulou TRACING THE INVISIBLE: SLOW VIOLENCE; FÜKEIRON, AND THE RIGHT TO RETURN Ines Halabi SENTENCES ABOUT RIVERS AND CANCERS lucky dragons – Luke Fischbeck CANCER IS A WEATHER SYSTEM lucky dragons – Sarah Rara ANGUILLE VANNAMEL: FERTILE WATERS Interview by Sonic Acts ERIK PETERS: COLLABORATIVE WORLDBUILDING Interview by Sonic Acts