DEEP TIME AGENCY

Alexander von Humboldt - Ideen zu einer Geographie der Pflanzen. Tübingen 1807, reimagined
as quarry.

ABOUT 

In 2020, visual artists Miriam Sentler and Wouter Osterholt set up an interdisciplinary research initiative: Deep Time Agency.

DTA is designed as a multi-year research project with different case studies in a variety of industrially changed landscapes, wherein we recontextualize archaeological and historical objects in collaboration with residents, stakeholders, and institutions.

Our projects deal with the complex question of how ancient relationships to land and material might still resonate within contemporary society. We are not interested in nostalgia, but in creating situations where imagination and collective participation can open new ways of relating to (post)industrial environments.

In a time marked by ecological, social, and political crises, our artistic work asks how collective rituals might help in shaping new ways of relating to the landscapes we are fundamentally part of.

Archaeological paintings on the kites:

#1: Tumbeagh Bog Body (Pair of legs), Tumbeagh Bog, Lemanaghan, Co. Offaly, 2nd century BCE
#2: The Shinrone Gown (Woolen dress), Cangort Bog, Co. Offaly, 16th/17th century CE
#3: Manuscript, Faddan More, Co. Tipperary, 8th century CE
#4: Hair plait, Drumkeeragh, Co. Down, 16th century CE
#5: Woollen outfit, Killery Bog, Co. Sligo, 17th century CE
#6: Gallagh Man (Bog Body), Castleblakeney, Co. Galway, 3rd century BCE
#7: Suit, Kilcommon Bog, Thurles, Co. Tipperary, 17th century CE
#8: Leather shoe, Killaghintober Bog, Lemanaghan, Co. Offaly, 13th century CE
#9: Clonycavan Man (Bog Body), Clonycavan bog, Ballivor, Co. Meath, 3rd century BCE
#10: Leather Shoe, Annaholty Bog, Co. Tipperary, 11th century BCE
#11: Meenybraddan Woman (Bog Body), Meenybradden Bog, Ardara, Co. Donegal, 1100 CE
#12: Old Croghan Man (Bog Body), Croghan Hill, Daingean, Co. Offaly, 3rd century BCE
#13: Cashel Man (Bog Body), Cashel bog, Co. Laois, 20th century BCE
#14: Bellaghy Woman (Bog Body), Co. Londonderry, 5th century BCE
#15: The Dungiven Costume, Flanders Townland bog, Co. Londonderry, 16th century CE

08.    Pilot Bog Guardians (2025)
Location: Lemanaghan Bog, Offaly, Ireland

Kite flying, painting, photography, performative intervention

15 kites, (tyvek, flying line, spars, acrylic pain, 15 x 120 x 105cm)

Team: Deep Time Agency in collaboration with Ben Gearey (UCC), Aoife Phelan (Lemanaghan Bog Heritage and Conservation group, IPeAAT (Irish Peatland Archaeology Across Time) in collaboration with UCC and the National Heritage Week in Ireland.

Thanks to archaeologist Ben Gearey of the UCC  and to the members of the Lemanaghan Heritage and Conservation Group.

Generously funded by Iona Stichting & UCC


Bog Guardians reacts to the building of a planned wind farm in a bog landscape, resulting in considerable protest from local heritage and wildlife conservation groups.

The industrial development, currently in the pre-planning stage, is executed by the former peat extraction company Bord na Móna (BnM). The company has rebranded itself as a renewable energy provider, building wind turbines and solar farms on its former peat excavation sites. For Lemanaghan, they envision the installation of 15 wind turbines total, each with a height of up to 220 meters, sufficient to power approximately 55,000 Irish homes annually.

In response to the heated debate about the plans for a future wind farm, Deep Time Agency looked at archeological remains discovered in peat lands, nowadays excavated for wind farm construction. In doing so, they investigated how peatland archaeology can help in moving the green energy debate forward, therefore researching material ties between the past and the future of energy landscapes.

The flying of kites functioned as an alternative form of protest in the project, meant to break open the “heavy” debate through a seemingly light-hearted activity. While flying fifteen different kites at the exact locations of the proposed wind turbines, DTA mapped both the natural and social landscape underneath, creating space for conversations with the community. Together with different locals, they then reflected on the consequences of the transformation of the local (energy) landscape: from an industrial peat bog to a large-scale wind farm.

The kites are decorated with paintings of body parts and clothes, found in Irish bogs during centuries of peat excavations. Together, they depict various objects spontaneously archived by the peat, recontextualized to “flag” community’s concerns about the wind turbine project and its potentially destructive effect on local wildlife, culture, and heritage. 

The grim visual language of the archaeological remains could meanwhile be interpreted as a warning for the consequences of our relentless reliance on economic progress and unregulated hyper-capitalism, which has become a global threat in times of climate change. As ‘resistance spirits’ from the past, the bog bodies are evidence of the rich archaeological record of the peatlands, symbolizing the community’s concerns about the windfarm and its potentially destructive effect on local wildlife and heritage.

Energy Acts reenacted: 

1) Small Fry in Oil (1973)
2) Ness Monstrosities (1976) 
3) Shel(l)ties (1978) 
4) BP Pigs (1979) 
5) Da Freefield Arabs (1983) 
6) WINDerful Lights (1983)
7) Dales Voe Raiders (1984)
8) Sting in the Tail (2004) 

07.    The Moving Energy Theatre (2025)
Location: The Shetland Islands, Scotland, United Kingdom

Performative intervention, costume-making, photography, publication (forthcoming)

Team: Deep Time Agency & Anna Tudos, Marcus Nicolson (assistance), John Coutts (photography), Daniel Shailer (reporting & interviewing)

Thanks to Gaada, Shetland Museum & Archives, the Up Helly Aa Committee, Jon Pulley, Gilly Bridle & Sew Far North

Generously funded by the Mondriaan Fund


The Shetland Islands are a Scottish archipelago that lies approximately 480 kilometres north of Edinburgh and 320 kilometres west of Bergen, on the crossroads between Norway, Scotland, and the Faroe Islands. Shetland houses Sullom Voe, one of the biggest oil terminals in Europe. During peak times, up to 1.5 million barrels of oil enter the archipelago daily from the oil platforms in the North Sea to be stored in underground containers. Afterwards, they are shipped to ports worldwide. The archipelago is also a major player in wind and tidal energy.

Some of the energy industry’s traces are more visible than others for the 23,000 inhabitants living there. The ways these industries have changed island life and natural environments throughout history are often discussed, performed, and criticized by members of the Shetland community. Examples are the short theatre acts that happen in the framework of the carnivalesque Up Helly Aa festival. A handful of historical acts from between 1972 and 2003 found in the Shetland Archives and the Up Helly Aa Committee Archive reference the energy industry through a critical lens and a specific aesthetic, marked by costumes, props, songs, and so on.

In light of the opening of the new Rosebank oil field north-west of Shetland (planned to start operating in 2026), it is time again for these discourses to re-emerge. TMET uses re-enactment and performative intervention to bring back and revive 8 selected energy acts from the archives. For this purpose, costumes and props were recreated and placed back into the industrial environments the acts discussed and critiqued once, letting interactions around them unfold spontaneously. In this way, the costumes become creative tools for conversations around energy, which allow for contemporary discussion about what roles these industries play in the Shetlanders’ lives today.