Between 15 and 17 March 2022, historic clouds of Saharan dust swirled across Europe. Scientists recently found that the dust particles also carried abnormal levels of radiation to Europe, spectres of France’s nuclear tests in the colonized Sahara in the 1960s.
X-Scene 1.0 speculates on a scenography of dust-borne colonial toxicity entangled in the Dutch sand dunes. The vibration of the dust, mediated by real-time radiation·dust data from the soil surface in The Hague, fluctuates constantly. It is a non-human expression of colonial toxicity that seeps through bodies and environments. These resonant explorations attempt to reveal an unseen catastrophe beyond our vision, ringing and quivering with the interconnectedness between the human and the more-than-human, which is so urgent in the present moment.
The dust will never forget.
