DIT 2026: Sweætshops® and Kwasu Tembo – Prove Your Human
- Year
- 2026
- Partners
- Deadline for applications
Monday 23 February 2026
- Apply
Application Form
Download a Word doc version
Download a Large Text version
What
Prove Your Human is a wordless weekend trip exploring altered states of consciousness in opposition to the large-scale language models of artificial intelligence by forgoing the use of language – spoken and written – for several days.
We’re going to the other side.
Selected participants will receive instructions on location and be picked up in a playful ‘alien abduction’ process where they will be taken to a remote cottage or campsite.
Over the course of a weekend we will host several workshops using readapted technologies and objects linked with the paranormal and super/hyperstition to explore themes of online misinformation in collective sigil creation and land-marking. Alongside traditional star-gazing we will spend time collecting cosmic frequencies. The retreat focuses on gesture, emotion, coincidence and spooky action.
We want to ask:
- How does being wordless and disrupting traditional communication methods alter our perception?
- How do parsing, comprehension, attention and belief (de)cohere around the speed of information?
- How do we break down information (parsing), pay attention and decide what to believe when information moves fast?
When
In July or August 2026. The exact date will be determined after selection.
Where
An undisclosed location in the vicinity of Barrow-in-Furness (proximity to Birkhill stone circle).
Who
If you want to make contact. Make contact.
There will be five to eight participating artists/practitioners.
Two places are ringfenced for artists/practitioners based in the North of England. This means that at least two places will be offered to local practitioners, and the remaining places are open to artists based anywhere.
What to expect
Prove Your Human is simultaneously a retreat, a social experiment, and a durational improvised performance. Selected participants will individually and collaboratively create land markings and generate sounds over a series of workshops. The weekend ends with individual and collective debriefs. You will receive a full dossier of the information gathered at a later stage.
The traffic lights indicate go.
General information
- Until the final day, the retreat is entirely wordless. Talking, writing and texting are strictly prohibited. You will be taught clear gestures for agreement, disagreement, opting in and opting out. Everything else is improvised. Comfort with uncertainty is essential.
- Anyone unable to work within the wordless structure will be ejected from the retreat.
- All phones, laptops and communication devices are prohibited.
- The retreat will last 3 days, 2 nights.
- You will stay at a cottage or campsite.
- Activities take place indoors and outdoors.
- The retreat will be filmed and documented.
- All participants will receive a copy of the final documentation.
How the weekend unfolds
- Day 1 focuses on visual and symbolic initiation: group divination, individual sigil creation, collective beach marking and stargazing.
- Day 2 shifts into listening and signal-hunting: EVP recording, sun-frequency recording.
- Day 3 individual interviews, ending with a group discussion.
Before applying, please consider that the retreat will include:
- Extended time without spoken language.
- Outdoor, durational activities that may involve walking, standing, or uneven ground.
- Shared accommodation and collective decision-making.
- Complete separation from personal digital devices.
- Being part of an intentionally ambiguous, speculative environment.
- Being filmed as part of the project.
Safety, care, and the unknown
Due to the nature of the retreat and its themes, there is a high likelihood of spooky action (at a distance). We welcome the paranoid, provided they are willing to go there playfully. While altered timelines and minor disappearances cannot be fully ruled out, the lead artists will handle all practical matters, including unforeseen incidents and run-ins with authorities. We ask participating artists to take care of their own psychic boundaries/comfort.
Signal received. Transmission ends.
Access
- The exact location is not known yet, but it will include outdoor, durational activities that may involve walking, standing, or uneven ground.
- Non-verbal communication gestures will be clearly introduced and consistently used.
- Opt-in and opt-out gestures will always be available.
- Space to step away or rest will be provided.
- Clear framing of activities and expectations will be communicated in advance.
- Lead artists and partners will be present at all times to support participating artists/practitioners and respond to unexpected events.
There is no additional access budget to cover participation.
Travel & Accommodation
The group will stay together at a cottage or campsite for two nights. The cost of this is covered by the project budget.
Participating artists/practitioners based outside of Lancaster will be responsible for their own travel.
About the Artists
Sweætshops® Merik is the current company spokesperson for Sweætshops®, a portmanteau representing our contradictory participation as both perpetrators, victims/producers and consumers within the exploitative global supply-chain. Creating allegorical personas from the waste of consumerism and pop/internet culture, using them as matrixes to examine complex, intersecting societal ills we lack a language for and therefore struggle to address. Media channeling, demographic violence, mystery shopper plays, ceremonial muzak, other activities allowable.
We can neither confirm nor deny their participation in the project.
Merik (R) Fraser
Kwasu Tembo (he/him) earned his undergraduate degree in Honours English Literature at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, with a concentration in Critical and Literary Theory. He subsequently undertook an MScR in Critical Theory at the University of Edinburgh and completed his PhD at the same institution. He taught courses in composition, literary and critical theory, and Africana literature and film at Ashesi University in Accra, Ghana – where he also served as Director of its Writing Centre. He has published on a wide range of topics, texts, and media in a variety of international journals and anthologies, most recently the book Time Travel & Trauma (Lexington Books, 2025), the text analyses what he calls the ‘inter-tension’ between trauma and time using examples from 20th and 21st century time travel science fiction cinema as dialogic case studies. Throughout this he has had a continued live sound art practice.
Kwasu Tembo
How to apply
- Application Form: Each DIT has a different online application form, depending on the needs of the project. You can find the link to the online Application Form, Word and audio versions at the top of this page.
- Alternative formats: We accept written, video, and audio applications. For video or audio applications, please answer the questions listed in the Application Form within a recording of 5 minutes. Send the file to [email protected].
- Access: We cannot provide or pay for access support to help with writing or preparing the application. Should you need support accessing or submitting the application, please contact us using the phone or email details below and we will be happy to help.
- Further questions/support: Please see the FAQs, email [email protected] or call us on 020 8985 2124.
Banner image credit:
Image credit Sweætshops® and Kwasu Tembo
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