I had no idea I had a special connection to animals when I was little. I liked animals, but I had enough problems just trying to figure out things like why a really small dog isn’t a cat. That was a big crisis in my life. All the dogs I knew were pretty big, and I used to sort them by size. Then the neighbors brought a dachshund, and I was totally confused. I kept saying, “How can it be a dog?” I studied and studied that dachshund, trying to figure it out. Finally I realized that the dachshund had the same kind of nose my golden retriever did, and I got it. Dogs have dog noses.
Temple Grandin & Catherine Johnson – Animals in Translation
Temple Grandin has an inquisitive mind. She solves mysteries. She observes and experiments. Thta’s how she developed a device: a squeeze machine with two mattresses and a lever she controls herself. A kind of toaster. When she feels overwhelmed, panicked, or angry, she climbs into the squeeze machine and presses herself tightly.
A firm amount of pressure on the skin calms people down. The same is true for cows. Cows calm down when they stand close together, body to body, in a herd. Whether it’s because we are genetically herd animals that need to huddle by a fire now and then? I can’t say—but I do know that theater, reflection, and bodily awareness in the here and now go very well together. Exceptionally well in the works of Johannes Bellinkx and Schweigman&, which explore sensory stimuli and the way we process them.
Their works are on show this month. Binnenste Buiten, Kanteling, and Lichtgang are to be experienced at Oerol festival from June 13 to 22.