Experiencing a sense of depletion by complicated communication in many of my everyday relationships with people, I had a strong desire to have someone in my life to simply nurture. Inspired by a friend who got a chicken when his elderly uncle who owned a farm passed away, I got Pina and Toni. I am trying make friends with them and asking myself what I learn in that process.
January 5th 2020
“It's been a few weeks now, Pina and Toni still won’t come outside. It’s probably just the cold, chickens are supposed to be very social animals. I´ve been feeding them from my palm, but they usually just take the food and go right back inside. Sometimes they bite me quite hard. It’s OK, but I really don’t want us to get off on the wrong foot. I’ve been reading this book, Nonviolent communication - a language of life. Maybe I can read some chapters to them so they know where I’m coming from.”
February 26th 2020
“Me and Pina took a walk today, she was sitting on my shoulder. She always tries to be on the top most part of my body. That’s the reason she likes to sit on sticks, she wants to be as high up as possible, it's her survival instinct developed over millions of years. Makes a lot of sense since she can’t really fly properly, a way for her to keep safe. I just realised how her vision works so different from mine. She has her eyes on the side of her head, so she sees all around like 300 degrees. And she also sees ultraviolet waves, all her colors are neon. Although I wonder how I can really know if she sees it that way.”
June 12th 2020
“I just had an idea. Maybe I can teach Pina how to fly.”
Practicing Love was a research project for my masters degree at the Iceland University of Arts in 2020. The work is based on a posthumanist feminist philosophy, proposing alternative ways of world-building based on kindness and reciprocity in a human-chicken relationship. The performance is a collection of diary readings and videos portraying my efforts to make friends with my chickens Pina and Toni and was a part of Reykjavík dance festival X Lókal in November 2022.