Cavendish Arts Science

Thulani Rachia

South African artist Thulani Rachia was the fifth Cavendish Arts Science Fellow.

Thulani's research-based practice centres on critique and recovery, seeking a collective reclamation from the cultural erasure and displacement wrought by colonial ethnocide. His conversations with physicists across the department and beyond deepened and expanded his enquiry into graphite, lightning, atmospheric instablitiy and awe, opening up new avenues for his artistic practice and experiments in sound.

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It begins before the arrival

A new experimental sound work developed in response to Thulani's conversations with astrophysicists, climate chemists, geographers and neuroscientists about lightning, temporality and awe.

The work reflects on lightning as an agent in Indigenous Temporalities, changing our experience of time and space and calling for a reset.

Created in collaboration with musicians Vij Prakash, Joe Fenning and Peter Thornton and presented at Girton College Chapel, in the public atrium of the Ray Dolby Centre, and in the intimate context of the Kettle's Yard house, to explore ways of presenting the work in different architectures.

Listen to this 1 minute sound clip

Joe Fenning and Peter Thornton in Girton College Chapel

Thulani Rachia and Oli Shorttle on 'People doing Physics' podcast

Thulani and Oliver Shorttle, Professor of Planetary Geoscience, working across the Institute of Astronomy and the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Cambridge, discuss shared interests in graphite, lightning and deep time, the origins of life and the histories held within materials in Episode 43 of the People doing Physics podcast.