Images courtesy of Spike Island. Photography by Emily Widdows

Dub Epistemology
Audio Essays & Listening Sessions (2026 - ongoing)

Dub Epistemology is a series of hybrid talks and live audio essays exploring music, sound and listening as forms of knowledge production. Music recordings, radio broadcasts and interviews are played and narrated, reflecting recent work and interests that critically engage with some of the social, cultural and spiritual traditions of Black music.

Holmes' research explores Dub as both a concept and a method that is built on experimental and imaginative approaches to thinking about movement, repetition and time. Through versions, riddims and samples, Dub offers a way of thinking relationally, where ideas and histories are cited, echoed and reworked.

This series of audio essays draws on Blues Epistemology, a concept developed by Clyde Woods to trace the connections between culture and political economy to describe how communities pushed to the margins of society build power and knowledge in ways that often go unrecognised. Applying this thinking to Dub, the Caribbean and Britain, Holmes has been thinking about a Dub Epistemology to offer a way of mapping places differently, connecting different times and geographies, and bringing forward histories that are felt as much as they are heard.

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Iterations of Dub Epistemology so far have included;
- Luton Carnival in the 2000s, Special Collections x Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival (March 2026)
- Dub, Reggae & Punk, Spike Island, Bristol (March 2026)
- From Dub to the Devil Mix (April 2026)
- I’ve Known Rivers and Other Bodies, Glasgow International Festival (June 2026)