Saharan Dust

"When dust from the Sahara Desert drifts en masse towards parts of mainland Europe, skies become saturated with ochre hues and surfaces require dusting." – Sabin and Jorge Olcina Cantos (2024)

"Satellite vision is typically coopted in portraying Saharan dust as an intrusion across geopolitical borders, which is embedded within postcolonial power relations and the territorialization of air. My critique highlights the importance of telling weather stories from underrepresented perspectives, especially given the disproportionate impacts of climate change and air pollution experienced in African cities where Saharan dust is known to mix with anthropogenic emissions." – in Sentio Journal (2024)

"Blowing over the scattered sand, I played with random patterns and excavations, in a process of embodying flows of matter and the agency of the weather from all directions." – in Sentio Journal (2024)

This transdisciplinary research explores a weather event and form of air pollution that happens when large volumes of dust from the Sahara are blown across continents. In collaboration with climatologists at the University of Alicante in February 2022, I developed processes for altering satellite images by bringing in other materials or projecting them in a curated setting.

I was inspired by the ways dust travels and swirls. I speculated about drifting with dust as a decolonial cartographic imaginary. For Saharan dust is often referred to as an "intrusion" (across EU borders) in mainstream media.

I documented my visual research methods in an article entitled "Imag(in)ing Saharan dust" published in Sentio (2024). I also co-authored an experimental article "Weathering Saharan dust beyond the Spanish Mediterranean Basin: An interdisciplinary dialogue" (2023). This dialogue with climatologist Jorge Olcina Cantos is informed by postcolonial studies. We critique and subvert weather stories told from a Eurocentric perspective.

I presented this ongoing research as part of the "Breathing In" seminar series (WITS / UCL) and as part of a course on air and atmospheres at Amsterdam University College in June 2024 (the slides are available here).