When a dead whale washed ashore on the Hebridean island of Iona in the summer of 2018, artist Mhairi Killin was as intrigued as many other islanders. "It's a beauty spot and people walk there regularly - it wasn't long before there was a bit of a buzz around the island that there was a whale," she says. "That's been the same since prehistory when a whale ashore would be a source of food and oil and bone for artefacts."
Why the whale had died was a mystery, which deepened when it was revealed to be one of more than 100 carcasses of mostly Cuvier's beaked whales found on the west coasts of Scotland and Ireland. Scientists began investigating if military sonar could be responsible, giving Killin the subject for a collaborative exhibition, open to visitors on the Isle of Mull this summer.
On Sonorous Seas uses whale bones, sound recordings, video, poetry and objects derived from the stranded whales to examine the clash between our veneration for these enigmatic mammals and the way we increasingly fill oceans with noise - sonar in particular.
Denne historien er fra July 15, 2022-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
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Denne historien er fra July 15, 2022-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
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The Saudi football World Cup is an act of violence and disdain
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AI has made the move into video and it's worryingly plausible
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With tyrant Assad ousted, Syrians deserve support and hope
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TV
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Albums
Murky love stories, nostalgic pop and an in-your-face masterpiece captured our critics' ears in 2024
Film
Visual language, sound, light and rhythm are to the fore in the best movies of the year
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'It's really a disaster' The fight to save lives as gang war consumes capital
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Trailblazers The inspiring people we met around the world this year
From an exuberant mountaineer to a woman defiantly facing the guns of war, here are some of the brave individuals who gave us hope in a tumultuous 2024
Votes of confidence
From India to Venezuela and Senegal to the US, more people voted this year than ever before, with over 80 elections across the world. With rising authoritarianism and citizen-led resistance revealing its vulnerabilities and resilience in the face of unprecedented challenges, has democracy reached its breaking or turning point?
